Sector Despair
by Unify
Summary: Wherever hope goes, despair must follow. So once despair has chased you to the ends of the earth, there is one place left to go... underground! (SYOC Closed)
1. Zone X: Enrolment

_It's… finally done. Just now, I put the finishing touches on my grand design._

 _Almost difficult to believe, isn't it? I'm pretty surprised I'm finished, myself. Doing this all alone has taken such a long time, but my hard work is about to pay off._

 _But I guess I'm just wasting my breath. Can you imagine the feeling of watching everything fall into place…? Of course you can't. But for me… this is definitely what I live for._

 _You should be happy too, you know? You're the real star of this project… I'm just a behind-the-scenes kind of person, after all._

 _So tell me… how do you like it? Honestly, it's a real shame I'll have to wipe your memory after this. It's a bit… despairing to think I'll be the only one who can truly appreciate how deep this rabbit hole goes._

"…"

 _The silent treatment…? Very well, let's not talk about that. Why don't I explain my plans to you instead?_

 _No, I'm not some stock movie villain… so please don't give me that look. Your memories are going to be wiped, remember? I just need to tell someone else, or I think I'll burst!_

 _Not literally, of course, but I think you get my meaning._

 _Now, where was I…? Ah, right. You're going on a trip! It'll be fun, I promise - you see everyone else here? They're going to be your classmates._

 _They're not like you, of course… But I think you'll make friends just fine. We're all in this together, after all, so I'll keep your little secret safe._

"…"

 _What, aren't you excited? No? Well, that's too bad… But I guess it won't matter in the long run._

 _You see, this is for your own good. What does a little resistance matter? Everyone will come round eventually, I'm sure of it. I believe in every single one of you!_

… _Anyway, it's time. Any last questions before I erase your memories?_

"…"

"Who… are you…?"

 _Who… am I?_

 _You're serious, aren't you? All this time and you still don't know my name… I think I'm a little offended._

 _In that case, I guess I'll tell you. My name is…_

…

 _Only kidding. You didn't think I was going to give myself away that easily, did you?_

 _There's only one thing you need to know about me - I am the_ _ **mastermind**_ _. I'd tell you to keep that in mind, but the whole reason I'm here is to make sure you won't be able to do that._

 _Still… I suppose it's good to be prepared anyway, so I'll tell you something important. If you ever regain your memory, know this: I am not your ally._

 _Not now… but I will be soon. I can't say for sure whether I'll be down there with you or not, but I'll be cheering you on either way!_

 _Oh, and one last thing - I wish you luck. You'll need it more than I do…_

* * *

 **Welcome to Sector Despair! I'll be your host, but I've also recruited** **Veltrops** **and** **Susurruses** **to assist with planning.**

 **With that out of the way, let's talk OCs!**

 **I'm looking for 14 students total - 8 male, 6 female - as I will be using my own characters for the last 2 slots. This takes place in Japan, so I would like for the majority of students to be Japanese.**

 **I haven't decided whether or not this story will take place in the same continuity as my previous SYOC (** **Dangan Ronpa: Encore of Despair** **), but I'll run with the assumption it does for now. With that in mind, I won't accept characters who share SHSL/Ultimate titles with any of the characters who appear in that story (I admit it's a bit selfish of me to play talent police here, but I've already written those talents so I'd like to do something new). It will definitely take place in the canon continuity, however, so no canon titles either except for Good Luck/Lucky Student (and expect Super Dangan Ronpa 2 spoilers at some point).**

 **Regardless of continuity, this isn't a sequel to Encore of Despair so you don't need to read it for this one to make sense. That being said, I'll shamelessly plug it here anyway! It was my first proper length story, so the writing is… not the best, especially at the start. Read it, if you can stand it :P**

 **For reference, the titles used in EoD were the following (so in case you didn't read that wall of text, please don't use these!):**

 **Prison Warden**

 **Track Player/Runner**

 **Doctor**

 **Psychologist**

 **Story Writer**

 **Hunter**

 **Graffiti Artist**

 **Engineer**

 **Violinist**

 **Trivia Champion**

 **Quarterback**

 **Logician**

 **Pyrotechnician**

 **Soccer Player**

 **Astronomer**

 **Equestrian**

 **Please use the submission form below, and PM it to me! It's up on my profile so you can copy/paste it if you want, but please read the one below as well! It's got extra information on it.**

 **Feel free to submit multiple characters, by the way! I won't accept more than two from each person though, so do try not to swamp me with them :P**

 **Before we get to the form though, some things to keep in mind:**

 **\- This is not first come, first serve. That being said… I will be looking at each character as they come in, and ideally I will be able to assemble the cast over a week or so. Submitting sooner rather than later is obviously good, but I'm not in a hurry to fill up the cast so you've got a few days at least. Take your time!**

 **\- I'll do my best to stick to the character you give me, of course, but I reserve the right to a little bit of artistic license. This may include character development arcs (i.e. changes in personality/behaviour, but nothing too drastic obviously) if I feel it would add to the story.**

 **\- I will be more likely to accept a character that hasn't been submitted to another SYOC (or at the very least, their chances of survival will probably go up). The protagonist will be whoever I think is best suited for it, although at this point I am probably more likely to use a male student.**

 **\- These characters, in all likelihood, will be drawn (by Veltrops!). I may suggest changes to physical appearance/clothes, and colours may also be shifted around somewhat so there's a good variety among the cast as a whole.**

 **-** **I will work out the murders and mastermind myself** **, so your selections in the form will not necessarily reflect their roles in the story. It's more for getting a feel for your character than anything else.**

 **That's all! I'm looking forward to seeing your wonderful characters :D.**

* * *

 **(EDIT: Submissions are now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted!)**

 **ATTENDANCE LIST**

 **::| Male Students (8/8)**

 **Genichi Azai - Ultimate Urban Strategist**

 **Juzou Hirayama - Ultimate Pathologist**

 **Masanori Yokoyama - Ultimate Firefighter**

 **Shinji Tezuka - Ultimate Therapist**

 **Takumi Asahara - Ultimate Toymaker**

 **Toranosuke Takasu - Ultimate Stunt Driver**

 **Xin Sakai - Ultimate Good Luck**

 **Yuuta Tomoko - Ultimate Statistician**

 **::| Female Students (8/8)**

 **Asuka Azuma - Ultimate Servant**

 **Ayano Shiyami - Ultimate Mycologist**

 **Beatrice Onizuka - Ultimate Genius**

 **Kaede Kusunoki - Ultimate Sniper**

 **Lana Nagamizu - Ultimate Entrepreneur**

 **Mio Kita - Ultimate Journalist**

 **Nichira Matsubaki - Ultimate Researcher**

 **Riley Hamacho - Ultimate Parkourist**

* * *

SYOC Form

Name (Order is first name, surname. Your character will be addressed by their **first name** unless you tell me otherwise.):

Age (17-18 preferably):

Gender:

Talent (See above for a list of titles I'm not accepting. Bar good luck, no talent sharing with the canon characters either please!):

Height/Build:

Physical Features (Hairstyle, hair/eye/skin colour etc.):

Clothing:

Personality:

Background:

Is your character likely to be the Mastermind?:

Victim or Culprit:

Role in Investigations/Trials:

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Secret (This doesn't need to be dark! Not everyone has killed family members and/or burned their house down):

Sample Dialogue (Optional):

Other (Optional, just in case I've missed something. Is there anything else I should know about your character? Do they have an interesting story they could talk about during a free time?):

Other Demographic Information (Just for fun! These are also optional, but I will come up with something if you leave them blank.)

Sexual Orientation (Romance may or may not exist, but this has minor plot relevance!):

Blood Type:

Birthday:


	2. Zone 0: Who are you?

**Hello! Sorry it's been a while... pretty much everything ended up taking longer than I thought it would. 35 follows before the story even started is pretty amazing though, that's way more than I was expecting haha.**

 **Anyway, the first thing I want to say is that I received over 80 characters in total! More specifically, I received 47 male students and 39 female students. Now obviously I only had 8 and 6 slots respectively, so choosing the cast was really hard... I'm happy with how the cast turned out, but there were a lot of really good characters that I unfortunately couldn't fit in. So don't feel bad if your character didn't get accepted! I got a lot of good ones, and I think they would work absolutely fine in other SYOCs.**

 **Also, the character drawings are underway (drawn by Veltrops, as mentioned in the prologue)! The characters featured in this chapter have been posted to a deviantart account called UnifySD, and there's a link to it on my profile. Please check it out, they are seriously amazing!**

* * *

...

...

...

My name is **Shinji Tezuka** , and around 3 months ago I was invited to attend Hope's Peak Academy as the **Ultimate Therapist**.

I'm sure it doesn't need any introduction. I mean, who hasn't heard of it? Apparently, everyone who goes there is pretty much guaranteed to succeed later in life.

Amazing, right? Receiving that invitation basically made my year, and I'd been looking forward to it ever since then. It had been a tortuously long wait, but today was finally the day I was going to start attending.

I got up early this morning, got myself ready and said goodbye to my parents. They dropped me off outside the clean white school gates, and with a heady feeling of anticipation I headed inside...

... and that's where my memory ends. Now I'm here, lying down in a strange bed and staring up at a wooden roof.

I sat up slowly, looking around. Wherever this was... it definitely wasn't Hope's Peak Academy. I was in some kind of cabin, constructed with dark wood panelling to give the place a pleasant naturalistic aesthetic. Soft light streamed in through shuttered blinds on the window to my right, offering glimpses of bright green leaves on the outside.

How did I get here? I think I must have fainted or something, but I can't even remember blacking out. I'm still in the exact same clothes I was wearing this morning, so I'm sure I can't have been out for that long...

A buzzing to my right caught my attention, from atop the beside table. What looked like a smartphone was lying there, looking rather out of place in such a nature-themed room. I picked it up out of curiosity, feeling around for the power button.

It switched on instantly, automatically bringing up a screen with a simple message.

* * *

 _Good morning, Shinji!_

 _Welcome to Hope's Peak Academy! This device will be your electronic student ID during your time here, so please take good care of it._

 _Some time has been allotted to you for orientation to get acquainted with your classmates. There are 15 of them to meet, so please make sure to meet everyone!_

* * *

There was no name left at the bottom of the email, only the Hope's Peak seal and a cutesy picture of a sunflower. What was more confusing was that it looked totally legitimate, despite being strangely informal for a letter from what I presumed was the administration.

So... if this was some kind of orientation program, then this place _was_ Hope's Peak Academy? That's where I was headed this morning, but... something was weird. High schools didn't have bedrooms, and this wasn't the cheap stuff either. This room felt like something you'd find in a 5 star getaway to the mountains.

For whatever reason I couldn't do anything else with the phone-like device, so I switched it off for the time being and put it in my pocket. I still had no idea what was going on, so the best thing to do for now was to follow the instructions I had been given.

I quickly made a sweep of the room in search of an exit. The door directly to my left was transparent and obviously led to a bathroom, so I headed for the sturdy looking door over in the far corner instead.

My steps reverberated against the floorboards as I slowly made my way over to it, the handle turning easily as I opened the door and stepped outside. As for what awaited me on the other side... well, let's say if I knew I would have stopped to take a deep breath or something.

"What... is this place?"

My first impression was that I was on the inside of a staggeringly large pyramid. It had to have been the biggest enclosed space I had ever seen, with a roof so high it may as well have been the sky itself. And the plants... there were plants everywhere.

This place - whatever it was - was like a vast garden that stretched as far as the eye could see, a forest of lush green foliage and brightly coloured flowers. Up above vines cascaded down from vertical gardens placed along the sloped ceiling, forming verdant waterfalls frozen in the air. Tall trees sprouted from raised tiers made of pearly white limestone - almost like miniature pyramids themselves - as they grew skyward, reaching up past the glass bottomed walkway suspended high in the air.

The walls and floor were impeccably clean but the plants had been left to grow wild, hanging out over their pots to soak up the warm sunlight that streamed through the giant skylight at the apex of the roof.

I was never one to appreciate nature... but it was actually pretty cool. It almost felt mythical, like the hanging gardens of babylon or something.

While gaping up at the roof I heard the sound of footsteps crunching over gravel, bringing my gaze back down to the ground. A little distance away, a girl with dark red hair tied up in pigtails waved as she approached. She was wearing a short sleeved white button up shirt, tucked into a navy blue skirt held up by suspenders, but she had forgone wearing a ribbon around her shirt collar normally in favour of tying it around her neck.

"Hello," the girl said, greeting me with a friendly smile. Standing about half a head shorter than me, she was quite slim and pretty, with delicate features and bright golden eyes that matched both the ribbons in her hair and the one tied around her neck. "Are you a Hope's Peak student as well?"

"Yeah, that's right," I replied, feeling suddenly self-conscious under her gaze. Maybe I should have checked out my appearance in the bathroom before I left. "Did you get that memo as well?"

"The one telling us to meet our classmates, right?" She asked. I nodded, relieved to find someone in the same situation as me already. "I was wondering where everyone was. It's impossible to see anything past all the plants."

No kidding. It would be pretty easy to get lost in here... but I guess I should introduce myself first. "Well, I'm Shinji Tezuka, the Ultimate Therapist," I said, sticking out my hand, and she shook it with a smile. As she grasped my hand, I realised she was wearing an odd pair of white gloves, cut off at the bottom so only her fingers were covered.

"I'm Mio Kita. Ultimate Journalist, at your service," she said. Introductions over and done with, she pulled a notepad out of the waistband of her skirt. Flipping it open, she produced a pen from... somewhere, and crossed off something in it. "That's one down..."

"What's that you're writing down?" I asked, moving a little closer to try and get a look. Mio obliged my curiosity, showing me the notepad. It was kind of difficult to read her handwriting, but it looked like a list of names and their associated talents - my name was there, and it looked like the one she had just crossed out.

"I researched everyone on that message board before coming here, so I made a list to help me remember them all," she explained.

Ah... she was probably referring to the Hope's Peak official website. They released information dossiers about every student accepted in the academy, but I hadn't checked it out myself.

"Oh... that's pretty smart, actually. As expected of the Ultimate Journalist," I replied.

"Why, thank you," Mio smiled, seeming rather pleased with the compliment, "I normally do this kind of stuff digitally, but my usual stuff is gone. This notepad is just something I found when I looked around the room I woke up in."

Well, that probably explains the handwriting... not that mine was much better.

"I've got 13 names here, including you," she continued, quickly tallying up the list, "but those instructions said there were 16 of us... I must be missing a couple."

"That makes sense. I guess you'll find out who they are sooner or later."

"I hope so, this is actually kind of exciting," Mio replied happily. She put away her notepad and looked up at me expectantly. "Hey, here's an idea. How about we go together?"

Go around introducing ourselves together? It wasn't an idea that required much thought. Mio seemed nice enough, so there wasn't any real reason to refuse.

"Let's do it," I said, nodding. That left us with nothing else to do here, so I tried to decide which direction we should head in. "So... where should we start?"

"Let's cover our bases. Why don't we go around the outskirts first?" She suggested. It was a decent idea; the gardens were pretty, but they were going to be difficult to navigate without a map. I quickly agreed, and the two of us set out in pursuit of more people.

I was prepared for a long search for a glimpse of life, but it seemed luck was on our side. We had barely moved out of sight of our starting point when a head of bright purple hair came into view, sticking out against the backdrop of green and white like a sore thumb.

As if the ridiculous hair colour wasn't enough, the serious-looking girl before us looked like anything but a high school student - what she was wearing could be described as a peculiar fusion of a suit of armour and a french maid uniform, her short dress alternating between black cloth trimmed with white ruffles and dark grey steel.

She was also, er... Well endowed. Extremely well endowed. I wasn't even sure you could have them that big without having work done but when it came to this girl, somehow anything seemed possible.

"A girl with purple hair? That can only be one person," Mio said, tugging at my sleeve to get my attention. "C'mon, let's go introduce ourselves."

Without waiting for my input she darted ahead of me, greeting the stranger with a confident smile. The wordless stare she received in return was decidedly less enthusiastic, but she was unfazed.

"Excuse me... I'm Mio, and that's Shinji over there. Introduce yourself!"

"Er... Mio?" I asked weakly. Cutting right to the chase got points for efficiency, but it seemed a little too blunt considering we were trying to make a good first impression.

"You want me to introduce myself? I will do my best!" The girl shouted back in a shockingly energetic tone, snapping to attention.

... Okay, or not. She seemed on board with it, so I guess Mio knew what she was doing.

"This is my name, and title..."

* * *

 **Asuka Azuma**

 **Ultimate Servant**

* * *

"It is a pleasure to meet you both!" Asuka bowed deeply to each of us in turn, even though I hadn't even had the chance to speak yet. When she did bow to me, however, I got a glimpse of her eyes.

"N... nice to meet you," I replied, faltering as I inadvertently felt a chill down my spine. Her eyes were a demonic red, but her stare was empty, like she wasn't really looking at me. She came off like someone you'd expect to have a fiery personality, but it was like someone had cut out that part of her entirely.

Now I that thought about it, there was none of that energy from her wholehearted introduction in her mannerisms, either. It struck me that she stood perfectly still, as if she were a marionette waiting to be controlled.

"Hm? What was that just now...?" If Mio had noticed, it didn't seem to bother her as she was more occupied by Asuka's strange vocal display.

Actually, I was wondering about that too. "Hm... some kind of voice technique?" I asked tentatively.

"Yes," Asuka said, nodding crisply. "It is the most effective way for me to introduce myself!"

Effective... but also kind of weird. But then again, I guess that matched her.

"You know, that could be useful for introductions," Mio gently punched her open palm, giving Asuka a determined look. "Teach me to do it, Asuka."

"Of course! As ordered, I will whisper the instructions to you!" She shouted back, bowing again. Mio stepped forward eagerly as Asuka bent down to the shorter girl's height, relaying instructions into her ear.

"Oh... That's not too hard. Something like this..."

* * *

 **Mio Kita**

 **Ultimate Journalist**

* * *

"It's nice to meet you too, Asuka," Mio finished, looking proud of herself for pulling it off. A long moment as she waited for Asuka to respond stretched out into an awkward silence.

... Did she hit an off switch or something? I figured my classmates would be an eccentric bunch, but this was a little more than I had bargained for.

"Oh right, I don't think she'll answer that," Mio exclaimed. It seemed she had realised her mistake, which still left me in the dark.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I mean, this is Asuka. Didn't you read her file on the message board?" She asked, looking surprised when I shook my head.

The thought had definitely crossed my mind, but I had wanted to go into this year without knowing anything about my classmates. If they were going to be the people I'd spend the next few years with, I wanted to meet them without any preconceptions.

"Oh... I'll fill you in, then. As the Ultimate Servant, Asuka is famous for carrying out any command given to her. Apparently, she's so dedicated to it she won't even participate in normal conversation," Mio explained.

"She won't talk normally? Isn't that totally ridiculous?" I asked incredulously.

It was a bold claim no matter how you spun it... but as we were talking, Asuka didn't even seem to register we were standing right there having a conversation about her.

"It seems unbelieveable, doesn't it? But if she got accepted into the school..." Mio trailed off, casually spinning her pen around her fingers. Sounds like I wasn't the only sceptical one.

She had a point, though. It was possible the rumours were true, but I felt like there was no way that could be healthy behaviour. Maybe she was a robot or something.

"Well, the best way to know for sure is to test it," Mio decided, tapping her chin as she decided what to say. "Hmm... Asuka, tell me about Shinji."

"Wha—"

"Yes, at once!" Once again, those dead eyes locked onto me. It felt like I was being scanned by a machine. "Shinji Tezuka, Ultimate Therapist. 175 centimeters and 65 kilograms. Medium length pale brown hair and silver eyes. He is wearing a grey jacket over a white shirt, black pants, grey shoes, and a key necklace!"

Clothing aside, those height and weight measurements were alarmingly accurate. "W-what the hell!? How do you know my weight!?" I asked.

"I can tell by looking. As a servant, I must be able to calculate physical measurements from visuals only!"

... Clearly, I hadn't quite grasped the scope of how seriously she took her talent. I didn't realise height and weight calculations even fell under a servant's duties, but who was I to argue? She was the Ultimate Servant here.

"Well, I was looking for something a little more than a physical description..." Mio murmured, shooting me a cheeky smile. "Might want to watch your weight though, Shinji."

"A physical description was within what you asked of me. Please be more specific next time!" Asuka cut in, saving me from having to come up with a snarky retort— or more likely, a defensive protest about my BMI.

"Right. I guess that was pretty general..." Mio nodded along, eagerly taking in the feedback. "Ordering her around might be harder than I thought."

She looked about ready to start drilling Asuka for information again, so it was high time to cut in. "If you want to know about me, you know you can just ask me directly, right?"

"You'll never write a good article if you jump straight in, you know. You should always be informed before you interview your subject," Mio answered matter of factly, but it sounded more like an excuse to me. "... I might take you up on that offer later, though."

Thankfully she seemed to take the hint, though, and she changed the subject. "By the way, did you get one of those IDs, Asuka? It looks kind of like a phone."

"That is correct! Mine is here!" Asuka pulled out her ID, holding it out towards us.

... It was still buzzing. Looks like no one ordered her to turn the thing on.

Mio took it off her hands, switching on Asuka's ID to read the message on it. "Hm... looks like she got the same thing as you and me, Shinji."

"That makes sense, I suppose," I replied. "You'd think Hope's Peak would have made some kind of allowance for her personality, though..."

Oh, wait. Did that mean she was supposed to introduce herself too? I probably shouldn't just leave her here... plus, this would be a good opportunity to try out her talent for myself.

In the end, I spoke up as Mio was handing Asuka back her ID. "Hey, Asuka... You've just been standing around, haven't you? Do as those instructions say, and go introduce yourself to everyone else."

"Yes, understood!" She accepted my orders without question, taking her leave with a formal bow and heading off into the gardens.

"Oh, good thinking," Mio said thoughtfully. "Do you think we should follow her? It'd be a good way to find some other students—"

"Good morning! I am under orders to introduce myself to you!" We suddenly heard Asuka's voice ring out again, no less energetic than when she had first introduced herself.

* * *

 **Asuka Azuma**

 **Ultimate Servant**

* * *

"It is very nice to meet you!" She shouted. Judging from the sound, Asuka was only barely out of sight.

Mio gasped, looking impressed. "She's better at this than I thought. Quick, let's go talk to them before they leave."

We followed Asuka's footsteps into the gardens, but when we rounded the corner the Ultimate Servant was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there was a guy with a fauxhawk standing in the path ahead of us, staring in stunned surprise at the spot Asuka had presumably just vacated.

Noticing we were we behind him, he picked his jaw off the floor and greeted us with a big smile. "Ooh, how's it goin'?"

He was about my height and had silver hair and pink eyes, wearing a revealing teal singlet emblazoned with a large cross. The low cut shirt exposed lean musculature and three bandages wrapped around his body; one on each arm, and a third around his neck.

"Nice to meet you. Good thing Asuka found you, I didn't realise you were just here," I replied. "It would have been pretty bad luck to miss someone so close."

"Thinking about it, you were pretty close by..." Mio's eyes suddenly narrowed, and she gave him a suspicious look. "You weren't watching us, were you?"

It must have been her journalistic instincts at work, because from his expression she was right on the mark.

"Ah-ha-ha... I was just... checkin' out the sights! Right?" His response was somewhere halfway between dodging the question and an admission of guilt, shooting me a toothy grin. Somehow, I got the feeling he wasn't talking about the plants.

I wasn't about to let him drag me down with him, so I feigned ignorance. "Yeah... this is a really amazing place, isn't it?"

"C'mon, don't play dumb!" He pressed, seeing right through me. He gave me a wicked smile that seemed to be getting wider by the second. "Don't act all pure just because you've got a girl with you. I think we all know she had _huge_ -"

"Ah!" Mio clicked her fingers in recognition, deftly overriding where the silver-haired guy was going, "I've got this one, Shinji. I'd like you to meet our resident pervert."

* * *

 **Perverted Guy**

 **Ultimate Pervert**

* * *

"I... see," I said. It was certainly an accurate description, but somehow it felt like she was abusing the powers she had been given.

"H-hey, wait a sec! You can't just label me like that!" Shocked, he started to backpedal but I felt like he'd dug his grave at this point.

"Hmm?" Mio tilted her head, doing a very impressive rendition of naive ignorance. "What, was my introduction not satisfactory?"

"No! No, it was not satisfactory at all!" He protested indignantly.

"So you've got more than one personality trait? That's really unheard of! Tell me more!" Mio said, really pushing the innocent act with a big smile on her face.

He ran a hand through his hair, expression twisted into a grimace. "What's your problem? My name is Juzou, you hear? JUZOU! And I have more than one personality trait!"

"Oh, I see. Why didn't you say so earlier?" Mio asked. Ever the trusty information source, she crossed another name off her list. "Juzou Hirayama... the Ultimate Pathologist. I'm Mio, and this is Shinji."

* * *

 **Juzou Hirayama**

 **Ultimate Pathologist**

* * *

A pathologist? With the whole delinquent aesthetic he had going, I definitely wouldn't have penned him as an academic.

"Mio and Shinji... Jeez! What kind of ice breaker was that?" He huffed. "Ever tried doing an introduction without making fun of me first?"

"Have _you_ tried not opening a conversation by talking about chest size?" Mio countered.

"Ugh, okay, that probably was a bad start..." Juzou replied, shoulders slumping slightly. There was no defence to that and he knew it, but it didn't take long for him to perk up again. "Okay, let's start over! Tell me how I can make it up to you!"

"I mean, it's fine as long as you learned your lesson. I guess you could take off your clothes?"

"Okay, sure! If that's what I've gotta do!" Juzou was only too happy to oblige, tearing open the gold buttons on his top so enthusiastically I'm pretty sure I heard the fabric rip. Looks like that cross stitched onto his singlet wasn't just for decoration.

Mio yelped and leapt behind me, covering her eyes. "No! Don't actually do it! That was a joke!"

"Ha ha, just yankin' your chain," he said with a laugh, although he seemed content to leave his top unbuttoned. "Good to meet ya. Now where did that Asuka girl get off to? I didn't get a look at her face..."

Mio sighed. "Juzou..."

"Gah! I said sorry about that already! And I don't mean it like that, she talked to me for like 5 seconds!"

"Oh, we were going to follow her as well..." I added absently. I looked around for signs of the Ultimate Servant, but she was probably halfway across the area by now. With all the greenery in the way, finding even that bright purple hair was going to be tough in here.

"Damn it, she could be anywhere by now," Juzou cursed, but the prospect did little to discourage him. "I'll find her if it's the last thing I do! See you guys later!"

"... He's totally an idiot," Mio concluded as we waved goodbye. "I kinda like him, though."

It was true he seemed pretty difficult to dislike. He wasn't exactly the pinnacle of maturity, but from such a short conversation he evidently wore his heart on his sleeve. It was rare I ever saw patients like that, so it was a refreshing change of pace and I could feel myself warming up to his infectious energy already.

"Well anyway, we should get moving too. Shall we?" Mio asked. I nodded in agreement, falling into step with her as we set off into the gardens proper.

We walked along the gravel covered trail, following a short but twisting pathway inside. There was no conversation as we looked around in awe at the picturesque trees surrounding us, accompanied by the serene trickling of water that seemed to pervade the area.

Honestly, I could get used to this. I still had no idea why we were in this strange place, but it definitely beat a classroom any day of the week.

As we moved further into the man made jungle, it occurred to me how many bamboo trees had been planted around us. The sheer mass of thick stems blocked visibility at every turn, so there were no landmarks that we could use to navigate.

Having so many blind corners felt like a horrible design oversight, but I did have to admit it gave the place a definite feel of seclusion. Almost like we were alone in a forest together...

... Actually, putting it like that made this whole thing seem weirdly romantic, so I tried to forget I had just noticed that. Thankfully I was saved from my own thoughts as we rounded another bend, only realising we had entered a clearing until we had just about stumbled into it.

It was fairly sparse, with only a few modern steel park benches lining the edges and a large stone well in the centre. A male student stood by the well half facing away from us, but if he had noticed our presence he didn't make any indication of it.

From what I could see he was a rather imposing figure, tall and well-built with medium length tousled dark brown hair. He was dressed a lot like what you'd expect from an office worker, with a white button down shirt and black suit pants. His single piece of individuality came from his tie, which was a dark red with diagonal black stripes.

"Hmm, with a body like that..." Mio said from beside me, checking out the student ahead of us with an analytical stare. She had her notebook out again, so she was probably trying to guess who he was. "I think I know this one. Let's go introduce ourselves."

"... Yeah." I'd never had a patient with such an intimidating aura, so I was a little nervous. I must have been dragging my feet because Mio gave me a look of disapproval, hands on hips.

"Hey, you can't put these things off forever," she chided, jabbing my arm with her pen for emphasis. "Don't worry, I'll help you out. Want to know my secret for dealing with scary people?"

"Oh, yes... what is it?" I perked up, curious. It made sense that the Ultimate Journalist had a special technique for dealing with dangerous interviewees, so I was interested to hear what words of wisdom she had to impart.

"An armed police escort!"

...

Mio grinned. "Don't give me that look, Shinji. I know we don't have one, so just pretend."

Right. Fake it 'til you make it... or something. She marched off before I could protest any further, so I had no choice but to scramble to catch up.

He noticed us as we came up to him, looking us both up and down.

"Hello. We're Hope's Peak Academy students, here to introduce ourselves," Mio said, introducing herself with a more professional tone that was different to her normal voice - much more ladylike and polite. "Are you Masanori, by any chance?"

Now I could get a closer look at his features, he was seemed slightly less scary up close. Of course, there was a sinister looking scar on his left eyebrow and his masculine face defaulted into an intimidating expression, but I didn't sense any hostility coming from him... for now, anyway.

"... Who's Masanori?" He eventually replied after a confused pause. "My name is Yuuta."

"Ah, whoops... I thought I had that one," sheepishly, Mio consulted her list again. "Yuuta, Yuuta... ah, Yuuta Tomoko. The Ultimate Statistician."

* * *

 **Yuuta Tomoko**

 **Ultimate Statistician**

* * *

"Nice to meet you, Yuuta. I'm Mio, the Ultimate Journalist... and this is Shinji, the Ultimate Therapist."

"Nice to meet you," I greeted with a smile.

"... Hey," he said curtly. This _was_ the first meeting... but this guy sure wasn't much of a talker.

"Let's see, the Ultimate Statistician," Mio frowned as she tried to recall the information she had read. "Hm, I don't really remember this one. You're just good with statistics, right?"

Yuuta nodded. "Number crunching, plain and simple."

Was that the best description he could do or was he trying to get this over with? Either way, I wasn't buying it. "Hey, you're an Ultimate... there's got to be more to it than that. Don't sell yourself short."

"No, really... it's nothing special," he insisted, shifting uncomfortably. He was obviously eager to get away from the topic and I wasn't about to start pushing my luck, but Mio clearly had no such reservations.

"Mm, I agree with Shinji. You must have some interesting stories, right?" She prodded, deeming it safe to drop her polite tone.

"Stories? I mean, it's just statistics..." Yuuta replied evasively. His response only made me more convinced he had some hidden stories, but Mio seemed to accept that answer.

Not one to give up easily though, she tried a different angle. "What about that scar above your eye? Don't tell me you cut your face on a calculator or something."

His hand automatically went up to cover it. "Uh, not exactly..."

... I have to say, this definitely wasn't what I was expecting. It was strangely endearing seeing Yuuta's awkward reactions to Mio's interrogation, but it was probably time to step in. I nudged her in the side, hoping that she would take the silent signal to back off a bit.

"Well, if you say so..." Taking the hint, Mio finally relented and changed the topic. She moved forward to take a closer look at the structure behind Yuuta. "Hey, isn't this a wishing well?"

Taking a proper look for myself, it was just like she said - I wasn't exactly an expert on this kind of thing, but it looked far too wide and shallow to be a regular well. "Are you planning to make a wish?" Mio asked curiously.

"Oh. Um... I was thinking about it," Yuuta muttered. Averting his gaze, his hand went to his tie and started to play with it. " I don't have any coins, though."

"I should have some spare change," Mio volunteered, fishing around in a pocket hidden on her skirt. "Let me check my- eh?"

That was the sound of someone who had lost their wallet. Instinctively, I felt around for the pocket where I usually kept my own one.

"... Huh? My wallet is gone," I said, wondering how I hadn't noticed until now.

"Yeah, same here. Otherwise I would have made my wish already," Yuuta answered, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "They took my phone, too... What's going on?"

I tried to remember if the acceptance letter said anything about taking our belongings. Could I have missed some kind of fine print?

It was kind of a worrying development, but I had faith there was a good explanation for it.

"Well, at least the IDs we got are pretty cool," Mio said optimistically. "It's surprisingly fancy for just an electronic ID, though..."

"It's locked up at the moment," Yuuta replied. "We'll probably get to do more with them later."

"Ah, it's too bad though... I guess you can't make your wish after all," she mused. "Hey, I'll keep an eye out. But if I find a coin for you, you have to tell me what you're going to wish for, okay?"

"Huh...!? But that..." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. For such an intimidating guy, it was surprisingly easy to make him squirm. "... Fine. It's not that special, anyway."

... In fact, I was kind of starting to feel bad for him, so I decided to help out. "Well, we should get moving if we want to meet everyone. Any ideas where to go next?"

"There's a cafe down that path," Yuuta seemed grateful for the topic change, pointing us in the right direction. "There were a few people in there when I left."

"Sounds like a plan. Thanks!" Mio said, shooting him a winning smile. "Nice to meet you, Yuuta."

He saw us off with a wave, returning to staring at the well as we walked away. Mio nudged me as soon as we were out of earshot, grinning victoriously.

"Looks like we got out of that one with limbs intact, didn't we?" She said innocently, rubbing it in more than was strictly necessary. "As it turns out, appearances can be deceiving."

"I guess that wasn't so bad," I admitted begrudgingly. You win this round, Mio.

"But really, I bet he's a nice guy," she continued, seemingly satisfied by my concession. "It was kind of cute seeing him nervous."

"Yeah, we'll just have to break through his shell," I agreed. I wasn't expecting such a big guy to be so easily flustered, but it did make him a bit more approachable.

I didn't have anything else to say about Yuuta though, so I changed the subject. "So, what do you think they've got in the cafe?"

"Ah, Yuuta did mention that!" Mio clasped her hands together, her voice rising in anticipation at the mere mention of it. "I don't know, but just thinking about eating here makes me excited... tea and cakes sounds nice. I just hope they've got something vegetarian on the dinner menu."

I was just about to ask more, but further down the path a girl rounded the corner and came into view. She must have heard our voices, because she was looking straight at us as she made her way over.

At a glance, the girl standing before us was clearly not fully Japanese - she was freckled and heavily tanned, with long braided black hair weighed down by small silver anchors. Whatever her other nationality was, it was clearly from somewhere outside of Asia.

She wore a very formal looking red waistcoat over a frilly white dress shirt, along with black pinstripe business pants and gaudy brown crocodile skin shoes. Large gold buttons ran down the centre of the waistcoat, and a golden watch chain clipped next to the top button disappeared into her breast pocket.

Her outfit seemed oddly dressy compared to her wild appearance, particularly the scar running over her left eye and the single tooth earring hanging from her right ear, but from the way she carried herself you could tell that she was accustomed to dressing that way.

"Well, well... what do we have here?" The girl mused, the anchors softly clinking as she brushed some stray hairs over her shoulder. She was shorter than me, but I still got the distinct impression I was being sized up like meat on a rack.

"Ah... you must be a Hope's Peak Academy student too, right?" I asked.

"Yep! I'm Lana, the one an' only!" She grinned slightly as she locked gazes with me. There was definitely a devious spark behind those green eyes. "You got a problem with that?"

We continued to maintain eye contact as she stared me down in what felt a lot like an assertion of dominance. I wasn't about to lose that easily, though, so I held my gaze.

"Oh, there's no problem," Mio replied as she consulted her list, drawing Lana's attention away and breaking off our impromptu staring contest. "Wait, there is. There's no Lana here. Were you on the enrolment list?"

Lana chuckled. "Hohoho... I had my info locked down! You gotta be careful who you give your details to these days."

"True, true. But seeing as we need to introduce ourselves, we should get to know each other," Mio reasoned. Maybe I'd been spending too much time around my patients, but I was pretty impressed at her way with people so far.

Of course, Lana had an immediate response prepared. "In the business world stuff like that is worth good money, y'know? So if you want an intro, better cough up!"

"Ah, our wallets are gone..." Of course I had no intention of paying her for an introduction, but I'll take the convenient excuse.

"Hehe. Just kidding!" She sniggered, flashing me a grin that exposed a row of razor sharp teeth. I think it was supposed to be friendly, but there was a sinister note to it. "The name's Lana Nagamizu, Entrepreneur Extraordinaire- Nice t'meet ya!"

* * *

 **Lana Nagamizu**

 **Ultimate Entrepreneur**

* * *

"Lana... Nagamizu..." Mio repeated under her breath, scribbling the name down in her notepad. "It's very nice to meet you. Cool intro, by the way!"

"Hahaha... You sure know how to get into my good books!" From her affectionate tone, she had clearly already taken a liking to Mio. "Ultimate Journalist, was it? You'd make a good sidekick! I'll make you my protégé if you want."

"Is that really okay...?" Mio seemed taken aback by the sudden proposal, but accepted it enthusiastically. "I'd love to! But to tell the truth, I've never been a sidekick before."

"No experience, no problem! Just sign one little contract and I'll train ya up myself!"

"Oh good, I'm finally moving up in the world." Mio was clearly finding this a more monumental occasion than me, checking her hair and looking for dust to brush off her clothes. "Do you think I'll have a good dynamic with the protagonist, Shinji?"

"Uh... sure," I replied, making no effort to sound convinced. With Lana? They'd be an... interesting pair, to say the least. "... Is there even a real contract for stuff like that?"

"'Course there is, I made one! That's my talent, y'see," Lana grinned. "We'll get on just fine, you an' me... and I'm great protagonist material, aren't I?"

Absolutely not... but I could feel her eyes boring into me, so I made sure to keep my mouth shut.

Something was setting off alarm bells in my head around her, and I didn't know why - objectively speaking Lana had a perfectly amicable personality, but in my head that translated into subtle aggression and the mindset of a predator. She was not someone to be crossed.

Seemingly oblivious to my apprehension, she kept rambling. "So what about you, huh? The Nagamizu Training Enterprise is always open to a few more apprentices!"

"I... I'll pass, thanks," I declined, trying not to sound too hasty about it.

"Your loss!" Lana shrugged off my response, pulling out a long sheet of paper covered in tiny writing and a pen. I was surprised to see she already had a contract ready and waiting, even though I probably shouldn't have been. "Time is money, so let's get this agreement in writing!"

"Ah, sure. Just tell me where to sign!" Mio took the papers off Lana's hands and started to read through what was written down.

I knew Mio was free to do what she wanted, but I felt like I had to at least try and talk her out of it. "Don't let me stop you... but isn't going for sidekick aiming kind of low?" I ventured. "I thought you'd want to be the protagonist yourself."

"Second fiddle isn't that bad, Shinji," Mio dismissed my concerns with a wave, skimming over the terms of the contract. "Look, there's even employee benefits here! I'll take a free ride to second and work my way up."

"Ohoho... do I sense a mutiny in the works? I run a tight ship, let me tell you," Lana smiled as she talked, as if that would somehow make her words less threatening. If anything, she was even more terrifying while exposing those razor teeth for the world to see. "Try not to get thrown overboard."

"R-really..." It seemed even Mio found Lana's proclamation worrying this time, and she began to frown the further she read down the contract. "Oh, I might not have the time for this sort of arrangement. I've got articles to write, you know."

Of course, Lana was undeterred by Mio's change of heart. "Is that so? Well then, don't let that stop you! Just lemme rewrite some parts of it, and we can get a part time thing going!"

Could you even be a part time supporting character? I really didn't think this was how it worked, but I guess I should have expected that the Ultimate Entrepreneur was able to monetise it.

"Great!" Mio exclaimed, clapping her hands. "While you do that, though, we should get moving. It was nice to meet you, Lana."

"Hehe... Don't be a stranger!" With that farewell, we left the Ultimate Entrepreneur behind and headed on into the clearing.

* * *

 **Getting a bit meta with the introductions there, but I wanted to have a bit of fun with it :P**

 **In case you wanted a handy recap of the characters introduced in this chapter, here is a list!**

 **Shinji Tezuka - Ultimate Therapist**

 **Mio Kita - Ultimate Journalist**

 **Asuka Azuma - Ultimate Servant**

 **Juzou Hirayama - Ultimate Pathologist**

 **Yuuta Tomoko - Ultimate Statistician**

 **Lana Nagamizu - Ultimate Entrepreneur**


	3. Zone 0: Further Introductions

**This chapter took a little longer than I thought... I've been busy lately. But it's here!**

 **The second set of drawings have also been uploaded (which again, you should totally check out). There is a link on my profile!**

* * *

We didn't go much further before it became apparent we were about to come across another clearing. Before we moved forward, however, I pulled Mio back. I needed to set the record straight.

"Er, Mio... You didn't really think she was the protagonist, right?"

"Aren't most things contractual these days? I mean, she's got the papers. It sounded pretty legitimate to me," she replied. That was true, but she was also a teenage businesswoman with pointy teeth and anchors in her hair. Call me old fashioned, but I felt like a protagonist was a more elusive quality than that.

"You're very caring, aren't you? Don't worry, I can take care of myself," Mio added, sensing my dissatisfaction. She patted my shoulder reassuringly. "I'll read through the contract carefully, okay? It's not like I've never done that kind of thing before."

Caring? ... Heh. Too caring, as I've been told before, but I decided to take it as a point of pride long ago.

"Alright... fine," I replied. I didn't want to push the subject, so I let go of her wrist and we resumed walking, moving forward into the new area.

This clearing was much larger than the one we had just passed through, expansive enough to house a pair of streamlined, modern-looking buildings. The one on the left looked like some sort of cafe, with tables and chairs visible through the glass doors. The righthand building, however, was very plainly decorated. There was only a simple wooden door and small windows lining the upper walls, so at a glance its purpose wasn't immediately clear.

Just as Yuuta said, there was a student here; a boy with black hair was loitering near one of the cafe doors, crouched close to the ground and hugging his knees to his chest while drawing shapes into the ground.

From what I could see, he was short and had a distinctly dishevelled look about him; his white shirt, the brown and yellow apron he wore over it, and his oversized work boots were all crumpled and half untied. Even his short half ponytail had a few stray strands of greying hair messily brushed back over his head.

"Excuse me! Can we talk for a moment?" Mio called out as we approached. It seemed he was unaware of our presence as he started, his head jerking around to face us.

"Y... You want to talk to me?" The boy mumbled nervously. He hastily straightened up and turned around properly, gloved hands clutching at the massive goggles hanging around his neck.

"That's right," Mio replied, but her smile faltered as he stared at her like a deer caught in headlights. "Um... Or is this a bad time?"

"No, it's just that..." He bit nervously on his gloves, evidently uncomfortable with the attention. "I... I don't have any friends, so I didn't think that anyone would want to talk to me..."

"Oh, it's nothing like that. We're doing this on pain of expulsion," Mio joked. Seeing his crestfallen expression, she patted him on the shoulder and renewed her smile. "Kidding, kidding! But if you're a Hope's Peak Academy student like us, then everyone's got no friends here. We're on an even playing field."

That was an... interesting consolation tactic, especially with someone who seemed so fragile. It's not how I would have gone about things, but he did look a little more relaxed at Mio's teasing.

"Yeah, this is like a fresh start," I added, giving my own encouragement. "It's a good opportunity to make friends."

"E-eh? You want to be friends... with me...?" He asked hesitantly. Slowly, his expression morphed into a small, tentative smile.

"Oh, but we should introduce ourselves first," Mio said. "I'm Mio, and that's Shinji. Can I guess who you are?"

He nodded quickly, prompting Mio to gleefully flip open her notepad and scan down the list.

"Are you..." There was a confused pause. "... Genichi?"

Immediately, the hopeful look our promise of friendship had instilled in him fell away. His eyes unfocused, and he clutched his head as he stared off into the distance with a look of despair. "Uuu, I'm so invisible... I might as well not even exist..."

"Whoops, I got it wrong again..." Mio said sheepishly, staring at the boy with a mixture of surprise and worry as he started to drift off into his own world of self-pity. I think that was a minor stuff up, so he'd be okay... right?

"... You know, for a journalist it feels like you're getting a lot of these wrong," I poked, unable to resist the urge to tease.

"Hey, I'm doing my best here!" She replied defensively. "They didn't actually provide pictures, so I'm just guessing."

Turning back to the boy, she gave him an apologetic look. "Sorry. Can you introduce yourself?"

"M... My name is Asahara. Um... I... That is, my name is Takumi Asahara, the Ultimate Toymaker. N-no! Wait! Not the toymaker part! That's not... my name..." He stumbled over his introduction, slumping his shoulders in defeat. "I give up, it's too hard... please just call me Asahara."

* * *

 **Takumi Asahara**

 **Ultimate Toymaker**

* * *

"I can't even introduce myself properly..." Asahara sniffed, already starting to wallow in self-pity. "When I die, nobody is going to know what to write on my gravestone..."

"Don't worry!" Mio said confidently, eager to make up for her mistake. "I'll put what you just said on your gravestone, okay?"

"Wait! Y-you can't do that!" His eyes widened, shooting down her suggestion in a panicked voice. "What if someone reads it and laughs? And then they're so busy laughing they don't look when they cross the road and get hit by a truck...!"

"Ah, you're right. That _would_ be pretty tragic," she replied. I was searching for an appropriate phrase to express my condolences, but I guess that works too.

He sighed, managing to slide further into depression with every passing moment. "Uuu... It'll be all my fault I couldn't think of something poignant to put on my gravestone..."

"Don't sweat it, I'll help you! Just let me do some research on you first, and then we can do an interview," Mio volunteered. "Until then, I've only got moral support, so try not to die in the meantime!"

"T-try not to... Ugh... I can feel the pressure building..." Asahara mumbled, looking on the verge of a breakdown. "Survival is too hard for me..."

Wait a minute. Something Mio had said was strange.

"Hey, Mio... didn't you tell me you did research on everyone? That should include Asahara," I asked. Mio's list of names wasn't complete, so it was possible he could have been the other name she was missing, but he wasn't anything like Lana. A toymaker wouldn't wield enough influence to have his information removed from the Hope's Peak website, would he?

"Hm? Oh yes, his file should have been on the message board... I wonder why I missed it?" She pondered the thought briefly, before brightening up. "Wait! Now that you mention it, I think there was a file on Asahara there after all!"

"And?"

"I didn't read it because it didn't seem interesting enough!"

"Sigh... It's the same everywhere..." Asahara lamented, sinking into a self-pitying monologue again. "I'm too forgettable... I was probably left in the enrolment list by accident..."

"Now's the time to make up for that, right? If you can make an impression, I'm sure everyone will remember you," Mio countered. "Actually, never mind. You have that already down."

I watched Asahara as he stared down at the ground, not looking at all convinced by Mio's words. At this rate, staying positive around this guy was going to be a full time job.

Plus, I wasn't entirely sure he was going to manage by himself in his current state. Somebody was going to have to keep an eye on him. "Hey Asahara, Mio and I are going around to introduce ourselves together," I told him. "Do you want to come too?"

He looked like he wanted to say yes but he hesitated, pulling at his goggles anxiously as he tossed the idea around in his head. Although no doubt a quality piece of equipment, they were pretty worn, and I couldn't help but wonder how much abuse they endured on a daily basis.

"I, I can't... three is my unlucky number," he eventually admitted. "If I come with you, I definitely won't survive long enough to get a quote for my gravestone..."

... Well, there's wasn't much point in fighting his superstitions. "Hmm, I guess there's not much we can do about that. Will you be okay by yourself?"

"I think so, it's just that... I can't find my way around. What if I get lost in the forest forever? I don't want to have to eat my own flesh to survive..."

It was certainly hard to find your way around here... but it wasn't _that_ big. It seemed Asahara had the ability to stress himself out down to an art form.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine. Just follow that path," I said as reassuringly as I could muster. "There's a lot of turns, but it's a straight shot to another clearing. I promise."

"O... okay," he said, nodding reluctantly. I wondered if he was worried because he did have a supernatural ability to get lost, but it probably wouldn't hurt if I trusted him a little. We still needed to check out the cafe, too, so I walked past him and headed for the nearest door with Mio close behind me.

"Take all the time you need. I'll see you later, Asahara," sliding open the door, I bid goodbye to the Ultimate Toymaker and slipped inside.

Despite the modern exterior, the inside of the cafe maintained the wooden theme of the sector; it was positively packed with square wooden tables that were the perfect size for two people to sit opposite each other. Plants and beautiful landscape paintings served as the interior decor and there was even a rustic fireplace in one corner of the room, giving the place a cozy and inviting feel while still being big enough to be spoiled for choice as to where to sit.

Now we were inside I could just barely hear the muffled clinking of glass that wasn't audible before, as if someone was moving things around nearby.

"Well, at least someone's here," Mio spoke up, listening intently to the faint noise. "Sounds like they're in the back."

We walked inside, heading for the counter on the far side of the room. It was much like one you'd find in a bakery, with rows of cakes and desserts proudly displayed to the world behind the glass. Behind it was a door that led further into the building, so I led the way past the counter with my gaze averted to avoid temptation.

The doorway gave way to a plain narrow corridor, with simple beige walls and warm yellow lights shining down from above. Directly ahead was a wooden door clearly labelled 'KITCHEN', but it didn't sound like the noise was coming from there. I ventured further into the corridor in an attempt to pinpoint the source of the sound, almost walking straight past a sudden unmarked turn that lead off to the right about halfway down. There was another door at the end of this passageway, so I walked towards it while wondering why anyone would decide to put in a passage that was so invisible from the entrance.

The door was ajar. Curious, I pulled it open and stumbled into what looked like a storage room... but to be honest, it was closer to a warehouse. Shelves stuffed with ingredients occupied every inch of the room, while shining stainless steel pots and pans hung off hooks on the walls above. This didn't leave a whole lot of space to walk, only makeshift corridors formed in the space between the shelves.

Someone was definitely here so I looked around, careful not to accidentally bump into anything. It sounded like they were... over to the right?

A few shelves down, I finally caught sight of someone with short straight-cut black hair crouched on the ground and surrounded by jars carelessly scattered around her. I could see black thigh high socks and the hint of a short skirt, but it was hard to tell what she was wearing under the lab coat draped over her shoulders.

Mio followed me down the aisle, but it was too narrow for us to stand next to each other so I stood to the side to allow her to see the student we were meeting properly.

"Don't you know it's rude to come in without knocking?" The girl asked. She turned to us, revealing her face— she had deep green eyes and was pretty in an unremarkable way, with no particularly distinctive features other than an unusually focused gaze, as if she was thinking deeply about something.

She was quite short, much like Asahara was, and seemed totally at home in the cramped space we had found her in. Now she was facing us her skirt was also properly visible, along with a white button down shirt with a blue ribbon, and a matching blue wristband.

More to the point, her expression was deadpan despite her joking. At least I think she was joking. "Oh... uh, sorry. I'm Shinji Tezuka, the Ultimate Therapist, and this is Mio Kita, the Ultimate Journalist."

The girl merely nodded in response, more interested in finishing her inspection of the glass container she was holding. She shook it a few times experimentally, but quickly lost interest and put it down on the floor with the others.

"Nice to meet you. Are you looking for something?" Mio asked, crouching down to pick up a jar that had been placed on the ground. From what I could see, it was full of hard candy. It actually looked pretty appetising, even though I wasn't feeling particularly hungry.

In fact, this entire aisle was filled to the brim with chocolates and lollies. The cacophony of bright colours strangely blended together into a rainbow backdrop.

"Lollipops," the girl replied.

"... Lollipops?"

"Took me a while to find the candy section. For a while there I was worried they didn't have any," she said, clearly not thinking much of my confusion as she carried on as if she hadn't heard me. She pulled a pair of yellow lollipops out of one of the lab coat's pockets and offered them to us. "Want one? I'm Nichira Matsubaki, Ultimate Reseacher."

* * *

 **Nichira Matsubaki**

 **Ultimate Researcher**

* * *

"I'm good, thanks. I'm not that great with sweets," I politely declined, figuring that I would just leave them to her, and Mio shook her head as well. Shrugging, Nichira put one back into her pocket and pulled the wrapper off the other one in a clean motion, sticking it into her mouth.

"So this is the Ultimate Researcher. She, uh... researches stuff," Mio concluded lamely. "The file didn't say much."

She smirked. "I research things... for the right price, of course. People too, sometimes."

"Is that scientific research? Or like, detective research?"

"Yes," Nichira replied. Probably knowing I was about to point out that didn't answer the question, she sighed in annoyance. "Well, what do you want me to say? Finding information is my talent, so it depends on the job."

"Oh really? Did you research us?" I asked, suddenly curious.

The question made her pause, pulling the lollipop out of her mouth and looking straight up at me. For some reason, I didn't like the glint in her eyes as she spoke. "Oh? Do you really want me to answer that?"

"... Yes?" I answered, silently hoping that this wasn't somehow a horrible idea. Nichira stepped over the jars on the ground and walked right up to me, coming up uncomfortably close.

"Well then, I'll tell you. It's strange..." She looked up at me with an inscrutable expression, eyes narrowed, "I researched you, but why can't I remember what I found? Same for you, red hair."

With nowhere to escape to in the cramped confines of the shelves, I had no choice but to endure the analysis under her distrustful gaze.

I didn't think I had any particularly dirty secrets, but it still made me nervous thinking about what she could have dug up. If she really had forgotten the research she'd done on me... well, maybe it was better it stayed that way.

"Anyhow, this cafe is weirdly well stocked," Nichira abruptly changed the subject, breaking eye contact and returning to the fort of jars she had carved out for herself, "we might be Ultimates, but we're still high school students. This stuff is getting a bit gourmet..."

"I did see a shelf full of saffron back there... I'm pretty sure there was enough there to buy a house," Mio said thoughtfully. "They really aren't sparing any expenses."

"Yeah, it's strange... I guess it's really true that Hope's Peak Academy moves in mysterious ways," I mused. I didn't really see how expensive spices would help us learn anything, but it's not like I was complaining.

"Now, are we done?" Nichira asked, raising an eyebrow. "If you don't want to help me, you're getting in the way."

"We still need to meet everyone else, so we'll get going," Mio said, carefully starting to back out of the aisle. I started to follow her, nodding along with what she was saying. "It was nice to meet you."

"Mm," Nichira hummed in agreement, returning to her work.

We carefully weaved our way out of the storeroom and left the cafe, once again confronted with a choice of paths to take. It seemed Asahara had gathered the courage to move on, as he was nowhere to be seen.

"We came from there, and going off my sense of direction, that path probably leads out of the gardens," Mio said, taking the initiative. "Let's take this one."

I nodded quickly, following her lead back into the forest.

As we walked I found myself wondering about the layout of this area; in big gardens there were usually different types of trees in different areas, but as I didn't know my plants I honestly couldn't tell if this was a place we had been to before.

Mio had chosen a good direction, though, as before long we almost crashed right into a male student who rounded a corner at the same time as we did.

The first thing I noticed was his impressive height - physically he was even bigger than Yuuta, but his ruggedly handsome features didn't give off the same menacing aura. His standout feature, however, was his crystal blue eyes, which jumped out against his tan skin and short, neat dark brown hair.

He dressed quite plainly, wearing a basic red shirt with a star insignia on one shoulder, simple black pants and brown hiking boots. He had a necklace on under his shirt and a watch on his left wrist, but that was about it for accessories.

"Oh! Just when I thought I was alone in here! Good to see some friendly faces," he greeted, looking down at us with a smile. His voice was rather nice to listen to, warm and amicable as he spoke to us like we were old friends.

"Okay! I know this one," Mio exclaimed confidently. This time, she didn't even get her notepad out. "I can't get this wrong twice. You must be Masanori, right?"

His face lit up when she said his name. "Right on! You've heard of me before?"

"Of course! The fire department put out that factory fire two weeks ago in record time!" She replied happily. "I'm more of an investigative journalist, but I keep in touch with a coworker who always followed your stuff."

"Gyahaha! Am I that famous?" He let out a hearty laugh, pointing at himself with his thumb proudly. "I'll say it for the records, then! Masanori Yokoyama, Ultimate Firefighter!"

* * *

 **Masanori Yokoyama**

 **Ultimate Firefighter**

* * *

"Nice to meet you, Masanori," I said. "I'm Shinji Tezuka, the Ultimate Therapist."

"And I'm Mio Kita, Ultimate Journalist!" Mio chimed in.

"Gyahaha, don't be so formal with me! C'mere!" Skipping straight over notions of personal space, he flung one arm around my shoulders and the other around Mio, enthusiastically pulling us both into a bear hug.

In fact... it was so enthusiastic, it was getting hard to breathe.

Jesus, this guy was buff. It was like being pressed against a wall, and it didn't help I could feel something even harder than his muscles pressing against the side of my head through his shirt. Whatever was on the end of his necklace was quite chunky.

Thankfully he quickly relented when he noticed my struggle to escape, backing off with a slightly sheepish expression to give us a bit of space. I quickly ran a hand through my hair to make sure it wasn't too messed up, while Mio bent down to retrieve her fallen notebook.

"Heh, sorry, I got a little overexcited..." He quickly apologised, rubbing the back of his neck. For such a big guy, he sure had an incredible amount of energy. "But man, how cool is this place!? I thought we'd be in a classroom, but this is way better!"

"It's a nice surprise, isn't it?" I agreed. "You'd think this would be the star attraction... I wonder why they didn't mention it?"

"They must have a good reason. I never heard anything about this, so all information on it must have been totally locked down," Mio said, spinning her pen around her fingers absently. "I even did an interview with an alumnus, but they didn't say anything about gardens like this."

"Well, ain't that strange... maybe they have to swear to secrecy?" Masanori wondered, but he laughed it off. "Either way, I'm doubly glad I accepted that invitation now!"

"Administration will probably tell us what's going on... wherever they are," I said. At my old school, we never would have gone this long without teacher supervision... but then again, I couldn't really complain. It was a strangely free feeling, being able to move around by ourselves.

"Betcha they'll come out to play sooner or later. Let's enjoy freedom while we can!" He laughed again, suddenly changing the topic. "Though I've been wondering... I can guess journalist, but you said you're a therapist? Like the 'lie on a couch and tell me your problems' kind?"

Masanori's question caught me off guard. I'd never considered my talent anything special so I hadn't expected anyone to ask me about it, especially not with the genuine interest I could see in his eyes.

"Ahaha, I guess so... only we don't actually have those couches at the clinic," I answered quickly, "I just talk things through, and help them come up with strategies to deal with their problems."

"Jeez, just listen to you... such a good person," he smiled, looking down at me affectionately. "I like what you guys do. Firefighting can be ugly work, but I've seen therapy really help some of my men. Who knows, maybe I'll need it some day!"

W... Why did he say that with such a cheerful face? Well, that aside he seemed very stable to me, so hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

"So firefighters help people, and therapists help firefighters. Isn't that poetic?" Mio mused. She was jotting notes down on a new page in her notepad... ideas for an article, perhaps.

"Right? And the journalists shower us with glory, of course!"

"Ah, my talent is too easy to predict..." She lamented jokingly. "Hmm, but I guess there's not much to say about the Ultimate Firefighter either. It's pretty self explanatory."

"Yep, I put out fires!" Masanori replied with a laugh. "I think Hope's Peak said something about leadership skills, but that's just part of the job, you know? Whatever saves people at the end of the day."

"Ooh, fancy. Though I suppose there has to be something putting you above the rest—"

Mio stopped talking mid sentence, listening to the sounds of rustling branches and a familiar voice shouting at the top of her lungs from not too far away.

"Sounds like Asuka's been busy," I said dryly, drawing a giggle from Mio, "and actually, speaking of that... Masanori, you got that mail telling us to meet everyone too, right? How are you going?"

His hand reached up to rub his neck again. "Ahaha, about that... I've been walking around, but those little bastards are hiding from me!"

He hadn't met anyone else yet? Either we were getting lucky, or he had a hidden talent for accidentally missing people.

"Let's see... you're number 7 or 8 for us, I think," I wondered aloud, realising that I should probably point him in the right direction. "Oh, we just left the cafe. Head back that way, Nichira should still be there."

"Alrighty, thanks a bunch! Sounds like I'm a bit behind, so I'd better go introduce myself," Masanori replied. He squeezed past me, flashing us a grin as he headed off in the direction we had come from. "I'll see ya 'round!"

"Hm, what a nice guy," Mio mused with a smile, watching him go.

"Yeah... you can say that again," I agreed. Wordlessly we started walking again, heading down the path as I tried to steal glances at the cavernous ceiling without crashing into anything.

We didn't get far, though, before Mio's voice brought my eyes back to the ground. "Oh, look! It's a little stream."

Just in front of us, we had come across the source of the sounds of trickling water. A small channel lined with white limestone had been carved into the ground, carrying a thin stream of clear water across our path and into the gardens. It was clearly decorative, but it also seemed to serve as this place's watering system.

"That's kind of cute," she said with a smile, her eyes tracing the creek's path into the foliage. "Looks like it's flowing from up ahead."

The end of the path wasn't far to walk, and just like Mio said this clearing was the source of the running water. The creek we were following ran across the clearing and disappeared into the base of a large fountain that was featured prominently on one side. It was large and multi-tiered, cut from pearly white marble into elegant shapes that glistened from the shimmering blue water that cascaded down from the top.

From the antiquated style of the stone you'd normally expect to see some kind of greek statue at the top, but in this case a large sculpture of a sunflower had been placed there instead. The style was clearly done with the intent to imitate the workmanship of the rest of the fountain, but it was obvious even to a layman like me that it was the work of somebody different.

There was a girl with light brown hair tied into a shoulder length ponytail standing by the fountain too, who looked our way as we came over. She was very pretty, and stood at around the same height as Mio, but what struck me most about her is that she seemed very unimpressed with the amazing scenery. In fact, going by her facial expression she looked more like she didn't really want to be here.

"Ah, hey. You look like you've got a good head on your shoulders," I greeted. "Mind if we talk for a minute?"

"Of course. Hello, to both of you," she replied, giving both of us a once-over with her bright orange eyes. Her judgement seemed to be a positive one, though, as she smiled to us.

Unlike many of the other students we had met so far, she was wearing a very organised-looking school uniform; a pale brown blazer over a white collared shirt. The coloured lapel of her jacket was a dark purple, in an identical shade to her skirt.

The few accessories she had were matching, too; the buttons on her jacket, the pin on the red bow she wore instead of a tie, and a small wing-shaped clip in her fringe were all a matching pale gold.

"Are you two part of the new Hope's Peak Academy class?" The girl ventured.

Mio nodded. "Yep, that's right."

"Oh, I see. I guess we're classmates then," she replied thoughtfully. "I'd better introduce myself, then. I'm Kaede Kusunoki... um, the Ultimate Sniper."

She seemed oddly reluctant to give her talent, studying our faces carefully as she waited for us to respond.

* * *

 **Kaede Kusunoki**

 **Ultimate Sniper**

* * *

"Nice to meet you!" Mio said brightly. "I'm Mio, and that's Shinji. Ultimate Journalist and Ultimate Therapist."

"Um, wait a second," Kaede interrupted, "what was that just now?"

"Just a little something I picked up," Mio replied breezily. "Don't worry, it's standard procedure for introductions."

"Thanks... I think," Kaede didn't seem entirely convinced, but she went along with it anyway. "Well, that's me - just call me Kaede. Nice to meet you."

"So... you're a sniper?" I asked. From the second I heard her talent, something had been bothering me. "I have to say, you don't look very much like one."

I didn't want to judge, but I would have imagined the Ultimate Sniper to be a bit more warrior-like, or... well, something other than the very ordinary schoolgirl that stood before me. She didn't have any guns on her, either, and came off more like a person who'd be very uncomfortable around weapons.

"Hey, isn't that stereotypical? I'm not on the shooting range, so it's not like I need any special equipment," she answered crossly.

"Oh... right. Sorry," I apologised. Whoops... that probably wasn't the best question to start off with.

"True, true... appearances can be deceiving, after all," Mio said enthusiastically. Presumably following her journalistic instincts, she proceeded to dive straight in with a question of her own. "By the way, is it true you have confirmed kills?"

"Confirmed—!?" Kaede let out a scandalised gasp, eyes wide. She recovered after a moment, looking torn between expressing shock and indignant anger. "Hey, I'm not that kind of sniper!"

"Eh? Really?" Mio asked, looking surprised by this new piece of information. So much for having done her research... "But you can nail someone in the forehead with a rock from a kilometer away, right—"

"No! Don't be ridiculous! It's not even possible to throw something that far!" Kaede bit back angrily. Going by her pained expression, this must be a sore spot for her.

"Mio, where are you getting these from...?" I asked. She was the Ultimate Journalist, so I was pretty surprised to hear her spouting off apparently inaccurate information.

"Kaede's file, of course. Her achievements were really interesting to read about," Mio answered, frowning. "Hope's Peak Academy was the most legitimate source, but it sounds like a lot of the info isn't accurate..."

"Ah, you read that..." Kaede let out a long-suffering sigh. "Ugh, I'm going to make a complaint to whoever made that. I think they're trying to make me sound like the other weirdos in this place."

"Other weirdos?" I replied automatically. On second thought, I could probably name a few myself...

"Haven't you met them?" She asked, looking surprised. "The toymaker and that servant are total nutjobs. And that girl..."

"Lana?" I prompted.

"No, that's not her name. Maybe you haven't met her yet. Hmm... how should I put it..." Kaede trailed off, struggling to find the right words... or polite ones.

"You know, I think you should find her yourself," she finished brightly. "I'm sure that would answer all your questions."

That was a... less than satisfactory answer. My interest was officially piqued, but Kaede continued speaking before I had the chance to ask more about 'that girl'. "Oh, but I shouldn't be so judgemental... I think this place has me in a bad mood. I don't even remember how I ended up here..."

"Same here. I remember entering Hope's Peak Academy, but then I ended up in here," Mio volunteered. That was pretty much my story as well, so I nodded along.

"So it's the same for you guys, too. Don't you think that's weird? I hope we haven't been kidnapped or something..." Kaede pondered, looking horrified at the prospect. "I think this place is a bit too weird for me. Maybe I should just go home."

"You want to leave? But it's so nice!" Mio gasped. I had to agree with her - it was difficult to imagine wanting out of this place.

"Don't get me wrong, this place is really amazing... but I'm not the kind of person who'd enjoy a wild adventure. I mean, just look at the fountain. Isn't a giant sunflower statue really tasteless?" Kaede pointed at the fountain, drawing my attention to the water feature again. Maybe I was just being influenced by her critical tone... but on second thought, it did look pretty ridiculous. "They probably replaced an actually nice statue to put it in."

"That is pretty tacky, now that you mention it... I bet they'll let us knock it down if we ask nicely," Mio replied.

"That's not exactly what I meant..." Kaede muttered, before sighing again, "the point is, there's obviously been some kind of mistake. I want to go to Hope's Peak Academy, not wherever this place is."

There was a short pause, so I took the opportunity to organise my thoughts about Kaede. Her intention of studying was pretty admirable, but I couldn't help but wonder if there was another reason for her lack of enthusiasm. Other than that, she seemed pretty well adjusted.

I certainly didn't agree on her preference for a classroom, either, but it was nice to see there was another person who was at least a bit concerned about how we suddenly ended up here.

"Anyway, I'm glad that I met you two. At least this place isn't a total pit of insanity—" Kaede started, but her face suddenly turned into a grimace as she caught sight of something behind us. "Oh no..."

I followed her gaze, spotting a girl dressed in pink heading towards us from the other side of the clearing. Judging by her reaction, this was the girl she was talking about earlier.

"Um... I think I'm going to go somewhere else now," Kaede said abruptly, giving us a friendly smile as she backed away, "I'll see you 'round."

"See you later," I bid her goodbye, and Mio waved her off from beside me as we watched Kaede make her escape.

The girl was halfway across the clearing now, so I turned back to look at her. Kaede seemed to have a low tolerance for weirdness, but I was still interested to meet the kind of person who could incite that kind of reaction from her.

She was very short and noticeably younger than the other students we'd met - she couldn't have been older than 15. Her light brown hair was pulled into a mind bogglingly elaborate rendition of pigtails, held together by two prominent heart shaped hair pins.

The girl turned her attention towards me once she was within conversation distance, staring at me with her large, piercingly light blue eyes. Wearing a princessy-pink dress liberally decorated with ruffles, ribbons, and love hearts, she was the picture of a polite and wholesome child.

... And then she opened her mouth.

"Who the hell are you guys?" The girl snapped. As if to make up for her tiny frame, her voice was very loud and sharp. "Grr... I always have to do all the work. Aren't you supposed to be introducing yourselves to me!?"

"Uh... hello to you too," I said. She glared at me impatiently in what was probably a silent prompt to introduce myself properly. "This is Mio Kita, the Ultimate Journalist, and I'm Shinji Tezuka, the Ultimate Therapist."

"Therapist? Ihihi! What a boring talent!" She scoffed, laughing derisively. Her laugh was a very distinctive sound, and one that I had the feeling I'd hear a lot of in the near future. "But then again, it matches your face."

... Well, this was off to a great start. I was quickly starting to see why Kaede had fled at the sight of her.

"So this is the insufferable personality I read about..." Mio said thoughtfully, once again consulting her list. She didn't seem overly bothered by the girl's abrasiveness, but maybe that's because she had managed to escape disparaging comments about her talent. "Okay Shinji, I actually know this one. This is—"

"Who do you think you're talking to!? Watch me do a better job than you ever will!"

* * *

 **Beatrice Onizuka**

 **Ultimate Genius**

* * *

"Did you get that? Don't even think about forgetting it!" Beatrice commanded. "It won't come cheap... but I'll say it again, just for your benefit!"

* * *

 **Beatrice Onizuka**

 **Ultimate Genius**

* * *

"You owe me ten thousand yen each," she finished.

This was giving me flashbacks to Lana. What's with these people and money!?

I had promised myself I would meet my classmates with an open heart and mind, but I was really struggling not to pass judgement here.

"Sorry, but we had our wallets taken," I explained diplomatically. Wait a sec... she'd probably use that against me later. "... Not that we actually owe you anything."

"Don't think you're getting out that easy! I accept delayed payment. With interest, obviously," Beatrice replied with a grin, conveniently ignoring my addendum.

"Oh... sure. Whatever floats your boat!" Mio said cheerfully, brushing her off. I didn't usually think ignoring things was a healthy way of dealing with problems... but taking the easy way out was probably okay in this case, so I took that as a cue to move the conversation forwards.

"So this is what the Ultimate Genius is like... what kind of things do you do?" I asked. Besides being insufferable, of course.

Beatrice shot me an arrogant grin. "What kind of things don't I do? Everything I touch turns to gold!"

Well, she _was_ the Ultimate Genius, but she was also so full of herself it was hard to take her word for it. Out of a habit I hadn't even realised I'd formed, I looked to Mio for confirmation.

"I guess it is a pretty general talent... honestly, that's about what her file says too," she said, frowning as she recalled the information. "Making technological advancements, solving those math problems research institutes pay you big money for working out... you know, that kind of thing."

It sounded like Beatrice did have the brains to back it up, then. I shouldn't be so petty, but that made her smug attitude even more aggravating.

"Ihihi... Superior intelligence has a lot of practical applications, doesn't it?" Beatrice replied. She was clearly proud of her talent— perhaps a bit too proud, but on the bright side she wasn't running around calling everyone else peasants.

... Not yet, anyway.

"Now, is that all? I have more people to find!" She continued, putting her hands on her hips. "Time is money... and my time doesn't come cheap!"

"No, I think that's about everything. There are still people we need to introduce ourselves to," I said, figuring now was a good time to escape before she got any ideas about charging money for time spent talking to her. I looked around, randomly picking a path that I was pretty sure we hadn't gone down yet.

Of course, Beatrice seized the opportunity to take a potshot at me. "What's this? Finally pulling your weight?"

"Hey, we introduced ourselves to everyone else we came across," I replied, doing my best not to come off as defensive. Lana had approached us, so it wasn't technically the whole truth, but I wasn't about to tell her that.

"What, so you save everyone else the effort but not me!? Grr... You're lucky I only heard about that now, or I would have charged extra!" She complained.

Damn it. I was hoping she'd forgotten about that.

I decided to ignore her, heading off with Mio in tow. Beatrice made no move to follow, instead shouting her goodbyes at us as we moved to another part of the gardens.

"Ihihi... interest is 200% per day, so don't forget!"

* * *

 **As you might expect, one more chapter to go and we'll have the full cast!**

 **Recap, in case anyone wanted it:**

 **Takumi Asahara - Ultimate Toymaker**

 **Nichira Matsubaki - Ultimate Researcher**

 **Masanori Yokoyama - Ultimate Firefighter**

 **Kaede Kusunoki - Ultimate Sniper**

 **Beatrice Onizuka - Ultimate Genius**


	4. Zone 0: Full Attendance

**The final introduction chapter is here, which means the final drawings are out too - the full cast has now been drawn, so you should totally check it out! There's a link to it on my profile.**

 **Also, thank you everyone for leaving such nice reviews! They keep me motivated haha. I think my policy this time round will only be respond if I can think of something more than 'thanks for the review', but I encourage you to leave one! I really enjoy reading them.**

 **Arcana of the True Self - There is a second floor (as you'll see in this chapter), but the plants hanging from the roof are inaccessible to the students. That being said though, it's a big area... who knows, they might need to split up. We'll see what happens in the case of an investigation!**

* * *

"That was... interesting," I remarked, quickly glancing over my shoulder in case Beatrice was following us. Our meeting was short, but talk about an overwhelming personality...

"Ahaha, that's one way to put it," Mio laughed, her tone more positive than I expected. "She'll probably be a pain, but in a way that's part of the fun. There are so many kinds of people here!"

... She sure knows how to look on the bright side. I had to admit that if nothing else, Beatrice would definitely help keep things lively. I could already imagine all the personality clashing that was going to occur, but if everyone somehow managed to get along it probably would be a fun ride.

"Hey."

Suddenly, a male voice called out to us. I shared a confused glance with Mio - the voice definitely came from somewhere nearby, but there was nobody but us in this little pathway.

There was a sigh. "Look up, idiots."

I automatically looked upwards, spotting a male student with cropped blond hair and a stud earring in his right ear languishing on the glass walkway above us. He had sharp facial features and his arms dangled over the railing as he slouched forwards, his green-gold eyes looking down at us like he was trying to decide whether we were worth his time.

In contrast to his relaxed posture, he wore a tidy and formal looking black three piece suit—bar the jacket, which lay on the railing beside him—cut slim enough to suggest a lithe physique with some muscle beneath it. He would no doubt be quite tall, too, if he wasn't so bent over.

Now my attention was called skywards, I also took proper notice of the walkway itself. Cables attached to the ceiling supported the transparent catwalks hanging several meters above us, built in a cross shape big enough to be another floor in its own right. Not far from where the student stood, the area where the walkways intersected formed a wide plateau, mirroring the circular edge of the clearing below it.

"I just have to introduce myself, right?" The man drawled eventually. He seemed quite comfortable where he was, making me wonder how long he'd been watching us for. "Toranosuke Takasu. Ultimate Stunt Driver."

* * *

 **Toranosuke Takasu**

 **Ultimate Stunt Driver**

* * *

"Oh, nice to meet you," Mio replied. "I'm Mio Kita, and this is Shinji Tezuka. Ultimate Journalist and Ultimate Therapist."

"Nice to meet you," I added politely.

"Hm." His voice had a strange quality to it, making a sound almost like a low purr. I waited for a proper response, but he seemed content to leave it at that.

"Let's see... Ultimate Stunt Driver..." Mio murmured to herself as she crossed Toranosuke's name off her list. "Known for crazy vehicle stunts, and generally getting in trouble with the law. The file said he's been held back in school twice, so he's older than us."

I winced, hearing her words. Toranosuke didn't even bat an eyelid, but it still felt like information I wasn't supposed to be hearing. "Isn't that kind of private? I'm surprised they put that on there."

"Like I care. School's a waste of time anyway... doesn't get the blood pumping, you know what I mean?" Toranosuke said. He looked like a guy who didn't concern himself with gossip and rumours, so it made sense his words were as dismissive as his expression. It made me wonder why he was even here, but I guess Hope's Peak Academy was too good an opportunity for even a delinquent like him to pass up.

"So why did you come, then?" Mio asked with interest, predictably not content to leave it at that.

He sighed, folding his arms. "I got arrested at the same time I got scouted for Hope's Peak. The cops had enough of me after all these years, so it was here or the slammer."

So, he didn't even really want to be here.

It made me hesitate. I wasn't sure how to feel about that - my thoughts immediately jumped to the thousands of people who'd practically kill to get into this school. I wondered how they'd feel, knowing they were beaten out by a guy who only came to avoid jail time. Life was just unfair, sometimes...

"Sounds like you've been at it a while. How long ago did you start driving?" Mio asked. Toranosuke kept his mouth shut tight at her attempts to probe further, lips curling into a sly grin as his only answer.

"Oh yeah... aren't you still a high school student?" I added my own voice to her line of questioning. Something wasn't adding up... "If you're 18 or 19, how are you a stunt driver if you're only just old enough to get a licence?"

"I've had one for years. I didn't realise it was any of your business, but you'd be surprised what you can get with a fake ID," Toranosuke replied. He sounded like he was falling asleep, right up until he suddenly switched to a more accusatory tone. "Besides, I'm 19 now. Old enough for you?"

I shrugged, keen to avoid conflict for the moment. I didn't think that really canceled out driving while underage, but for the sake of my conscience I decided to pretend that stunt driver also meant he was a safe driver.

"Anyway, I'm out of here," Toranosuke said. He yawned and picked himself off the railing, slinging his jacket over his shoulder. He moved with surprising grace, considering how lazy he appeared to be.

"Wait, how'd you get up there?" Mio asked quickly, realising he was about to leave.

"Aren't you supposed to be exploring?" His smug grin came out again, no doubt reveling in lording his knowledge over us. "I'm sure you can find it yourself. See ya."

"Hey, wait—! Toranosuke!" She shouted after him indignantly. He didn't turn back, raising a hand in goodbye as he walked off. "Hey, talk about unhelpful..."

"He probably just wants it for himself," I said truthfully. I'd met enough lone-wolf types to know one when I saw it. "Let's look around for it later."

"Yeah... let's," she huffed in annoyance, casting a lingering glance at the observation deck as we kept walking.

We continued down the path we'd chosen in a comfortable silence, following it to the end which brought a new clearing into view. This one had two buildings, but it was smaller than the clearing with the cafe and storage room; the building to the right with the domed roof was the dominant one here, an odd looking structure that looked to be completely made out of glass. The other building was located off to the side, constructed with geometric wood panels and painted a metallic white to mimic the sheen of its neighbour. I wasn't entirely sure why, but there was something about it that screamed 'tool shed'.

"Hey, check it out. Is that a greenhouse?" I asked, returning my attention to the glass building. From what I could see on the inside, it was filled with vibrantly coloured plants that glowed in the light shining down on them.

"So it is. Because more plants are totally what's missing here," Mio joked, getting a chuckle out of me. "Ooh, looks like there's someone inside. Let's go!"

I hadn't seen anything myself but I followed her as she moved ahead of me and made a beeline for the greenhouse door. She reached it and pulled it open, her face pulling an odd expression of sudden regret as she went inside with me close behind.

As you'd expect from a greenhouse, it was filled with the kinds of plant life more suited to a tropical climate; a mishmash of exotic looking plants I couldn't even begin to identify were neatly lined up on multi-tiered metal frames, planted in wide individual pots for convenient watering. There was even a small palm tree in one corner of the room, half of its leaves pressed up against the glass walls.

It definitely felt like we were in the tropics, too, and I instantly understood why it was the source of Mio's discomfort. The glass did its job trapping heat exceedingly well, creating an uncomfortably warm and humid environment. To my surprise, however, the girl I could now see standing a few rows down seemed totally unaffected despite the dark blue blazer she was wearing. She looked so content examining the plants while off in her own world that I felt confident in calling her an unassuming kind of person, with the quiet air of someone who preferred to blend into the background.

"Excuse me, we're Hope's Peak Academy students here to introduce ourselves," I called out to her, hoping I wasn't interrupting anything. "We're not bothering you, are we?"

"Hm? Oh no, not at all. I'm just looking around," she said pleasantly, dark blue eyes peering at us through her thin framed glasses. Her brown hair was tied up into a neat bun, and she was wearing a white button up shirt under her jacket—both of which were rolled up to her elbows—tucked into a black skirt, white stockings, and black shoes.

"Okay Shinji, on the girl's side we've only got two left to meet. Parkourist and Mycologist," Mio informed me, tapping the notepad with her pen. "You don't look like much like an athlete... so you must be Ayano, right?"

"You know who I am already? I'm very impressed," she sounded genuinely surprised, clasping her hands together. "That's correct. My full name is Ayano Shiyami."

* * *

 **Ayano Shiyami**

 **Ultimate Mycologist**

* * *

"It's very nice to meet you both. I hope we can get along well," she said, smiling pleasantly.

"Hey, aren't we just doing orientation?" I spoke up on a whim. Politeness was good and all, but too much of it made things too detached for my liking. "You don't have to be so formal."

"Oh! I'm very sorry, does it bother you? Please forgive me, I'll do my best to be more informal in future," Ayano apologised profusely, somehow managing to entirely miss the point in the process.

Mio seemed amused, but she brushed it aside. "Well anyway, I'm Mio Kita! The Ultimate Journalist."

"And I'm Shinji Tezuka, Ultimate Therapist. Nice to meet you," I added.

"Therapist and journalist?" Ayano repeated the titles to herself thoughtfully. "They sound like wonderful talents. In comparison, mine is quite obscure."

"Er... I guess so?" I wanted to disagree, but it was true I didn't actually know what a mycologist was. Thankfully, Mio came to my rescue.

"It's okay Shinji, I've got you covered. Mycology is the study of fungi— or as I like to call them, mushrooms and stuff," she explained. "As you might expect, Ayano here is a specialist in them. Discovering new species, making discoveries about already known ones... according to the file, she even found a new medicinal application for a compound produced by one of the new species."

"Oh, you read about that? I originally assumed that compound was just a toxin, but it can be converted into an anti-bacterial agent," Ayano replied, looking happy someone was taking an interest in her field. "It's quite cheap to produce as well, so it will be very accessible medication once the test trials are finished."

"You did all that by yourself?" I asked. I think I remembered some articles about that one... it was big news in the medical world at the time, but I had no idea that a teenage girl was the one behind it. "Wow, that's pretty amazing."

I knew enough about biology and disease from science class to know that discovering and developing new medication—especially alone—was a huge deal. Just thinking about the sheer amount of people her work would help was starting to make my own achievements seem insignificant.

"Oh, I'm sure there was some luck involved. If I hadn't done it, somebody else probably would have," Ayano brushed off my praise with a smile. She was selling herself short, but I knew better than to start a spiral of trying to convince her otherwise. In a way, she was like Beatrice's saintly twin.

"Anyway, a lot of fungi grow well when it's humid, right?" Mio asked, changing the subject. "I guess it makes sense we'd find you in a place like this."

"Yes, I'm afraid I can be quite predictable. It caught my interest as soon as I saw it," she admitted. "Unfortunately, there are no fungi here... but I don't mind. Botany is also a worthwhile pursuit."

"Oh really? I thought they'd have at least some mushrooms or something," I replied. It was true there were only bright flowers and leaves as far as the eye could see, but I was surprised they left out fungi of all things, especially with the Ultimate Mycologist in our class. "They have god knows what in the kitchen, but apparently mushrooms are too out there."

Ayano shrugged, not looking overly bothered. "Really, I'm just glad it's here at all. It reminds me a little of the research lab I work in."

"Geez, but it's so stuffy... how do you even survive?" Mio fanned herself with her notepad as she spoke, gazing longingly at the outside of the greenhouse.

"You adjust eventually. I work in this kind of climate most of the time, so I'm quite used to it," Ayano trailed off, casting a lingering look at the bright red flower next to her. "Oh, I should really get to meeting the other students, but I want to stay in here a little longer..."

"You've got time to spare... probably. We've got more people to meet as well, so we should keep moving while we're on a roll," Mio said, already backing towards the exit. "I don't know how it's possible, but enjoy the greenhouse!"

We waved goodbye to Ayano, wasting no time escaping the suffocating heat of the greenhouse. I pushed open the door as soon as I could reach it, grateful for the rush of cool air that greeted us.

"Sheesh... worst area in here by far," Mio complained. "I know where I'll be avoiding from now on. Ayano was nice, though."

"Yeah... almost too nice," I replied. I'd never met someone with such impeccable manners - she was polite to a fault, if you asked me. I was sure she was a perfectly nice person, but I felt a bit more distant with her than I did, say, Masanori.

"Well, being a little less formal probably wouldn't kill her... but that's just how some people are. Isn't it interesting?" Mio said. Now we were out of the heat she had recovered a bit, playing around with her pen with her usual energy. "She must be very well brought up. I wonder if she went to a special school for etiquette?"

"I wouldn't be surprised. Maybe you should interview her about it," I replied, looking around for where to go next. We had visited the greenhouse, but there was still the shed to investigate before we could move on. From what I could see, the door was open. "Hey Mio, think someone's in that shed? The door's open."

Whoever had opened it had left it wide open, so even from here I could get a good look at the inside. It was very spacious, but otherwise exactly what you'd expect for a tool shed; metal shelves similar to what we'd seen inside the greenhouse were lined up against the grey walls, used here to hold a wide array of toolboxes neatly lined up next to each other.

"Probably," Mio said brightly, falling into step with me as we walked over. "You know, it feels like there's someone new to meet everywhere we turn. Maybe this place isn't so big after all."

"We're probably just lucky. We haven't run into anyone twice yet, either."

She considered my answer for a moment, clicking her fingers in recognition. "Oh, maybe it could be. We do have an Ultimate Good Luck classmate..."

"An Ultimate Good Luck?" I asked, puzzled. Honestly, I didn't really see what that had to do with anything. "I thought they were just super lucky. That doesn't affect our luck, does it?"

"Didn't you hear? Never mind, I'll explain later," she said. Brushing off my question for the moment, Mio tentatively poked her head through the doorway. "Hello?"

Her voice drew out a male student with tousled copper hair from behind a shelf that had been wheeled away from the wall. He had a pair of secateurs in his hands and was wearing a very noticeable white eye-patch over his left eye, but it was hardly the strangest wardrobe choice I'd seen today. His face drew into a smile as he caught sight of us, speaking in a friendly tone. "Oh! People. We're probably classmates, right?"

"Right! I'm Mio Kita, Ultimate Journalist. Nice to meet you!" Mio greeted. The male student disposed of the blades in a nearby tool bin, walking closer to speak to us.

"What, not going to guess who it is?" Noticing she didn't have her notepad out, I prodded her with a grin.

"Oh shush. There's only two guys left, so I didn't think it was worth it," Mio replied, sticking her tongue out at me. "Besides, I think I know it. You're Genichi, right?"

He nodded. "Bingo. The name's Genichi Azai, the Ultimate Urban Strategist. Nice to meet you."

* * *

 **Genichi Azai**

 **Ultimate Urban Strategist**

* * *

"I'm Shinji Tezuka, Ultimate Therapist. Nice to meet you, but, uh... what's an urban strategist?" I asked. Genichi was wearing black pants, a striped green vest over a white dress shirt, a belt around his forearm and a glittering gold wallet chain. I immediately assumed he was dressing the part, but his clothes were also way too wacky to be a proper uniform.

"Ah, it's complicated... and I've done some top secret things, or so I hear," Genichi replied. He smiled mysteriously, although I got the feeling he was hesitant about answering the question. "I wonder if I should be talking about it..."

"I've read your file, so anything on there is probably okay. Strategist, tactician, whatever you want to call it - it's planning troop movement and stuff, like the military generals do in the movies," Mio said, stepping in to explain. "Just... urban? Apparently some of the stuff he's done is classified, so the file was pretty vague."

"Sounds intense," I replied. I found myself wondering what kind of work would need to be suppressed... national security, perhaps? "Why the 'urban', though?"

"Exactly what it says on the tin, I'd say," Genichi replied simply. "The kind of warfare that takes place in an urban environment... buildings, streets, that kind of thing."

"Is there really that much of a distinction?" I asked dubiously. It seemed awfully specific, especially compared to some of the other talents we'd seen.

"Hey, I'm not the one making these titles. Maybe there's an open field strategist out there?" He wondered aloud. "Anyway, you came at a good time. Interested in what they've got here?"

It sounded like his talent was going to be pretty hard to discuss, so I decided to go along with it. "Oh, sure. Looks like a lot of stuff..."

"It's very well stocked. There's a ton of equipment - name any tool, it's here," Genichi explained, waving an arm at the rows of shelves, "there's even tarps and cleaning products... no sign of school books, though. Really, it makes you wonder what they're actually expecting us to do here..."

To be fair, a tool shed isn't where I'd expect to find school supplies, but he did have a point. We must have explored a good portion of this area by now, but we hadn't seen anything that could be remotely classified as school related.

On one hand I wouldn't expect them to provide us with textbooks and stationary, but it was specifically mentioned in the acceptance letter that we didn't need to bring anything...

"Oh no, I hope they don't want us to tend to all of this..." Mio clearly had other things on her mind, gasping in horror. "I get there's been a trend towards out of classroom learning, but this is taking it a little far."

"I doubt it. The plants here were probably designed to grow with the minimum maintenance required," he replied. Genichi didn't seem bothered by the prospect, refuting her with a confident tone.

Mio's brow furrowed slightly, looking curious. "Eh? How do you know that? You don't look like much of a green thumb."

"Haven't touched a spade in my life. It's common sense, isn't it? Otherwise tending to this place would need a small army of gardeners," he explained, tilting his head slightly. "Unless we have an Ultimate Gardener, of course... but I can't say I've met one yet."

"Oh yes, that makes sense," she replied, accepted his reasoning with a victorious smile. "And you'll be happy to know there's no Ultimate Gardener. Disaster averted!"

"Just saying, but 16 high school students could probably do it," I interjected. It was totally true, but I still earned an elbow to the side for my troubles.

"Don't ruin this Shinji, we're going with the self-sustaining theory!"

Genichi chuckled at our little exchange. "I see you two are getting buddy-buddy already."

"Nothing wrong with getting along quickly, right?" Mio countered with a grin. "Don't worry, just ask and I'll elbow you any time."

"Heh, I'll keep that in mind. Anyway, I'd love to talk more but I think I need to get going," he changed the subject, sidling past us and out of the shed. "Now I'm done here, I have some future classmates to meet before our orientation time is over."

"Alright, see you later," I said. We still had a few more people to meet so I considered asking if he wanted to come with us, but he was already headed off down the path we'd come from.

"Hey Shinji, should we go this way?" Now that Genichi was gone, Mio took the initiative to move on, pointing at a path that lead off to the right. "If I'm right, there's a bit of a curve up ahead."

"If it's where you think we should go, then I say we try it," I agreed, sensing she had a way better idea of where we were than I did. "Sounds like you're getting a handle on this place."

"Well, sort of. If we say that the greenhouse here is north of the fountain, the cafe was further south of that..." Mio recounted her logic out loud, frowning in concentration as she retraced our steps. She turned around to face the greenhouse as she spoke, shifting direction with each new location she recalled. "I think the well was somewhere east of that, and we entered the gardens from the northeast somewhere... so going left should take us to a new area. Probably."

"Wow, you remembered all that?" I asked, thoroughly impressed. I always found it amazing that some people could map out their surroundings so well.

"Oh... I guess I did," she smiled happily, basking in my praise. "I have to go to a lot of new places when researching an article, so I must have picked it up along the way. It's a pretty useful skill, isn't it?"

"Yeah, definitely," I agreed. Maybe I should look into it myself sometime...

Without further ado we set off down the path as per Mio's guidance. Following the now-familiar structure of the twisting path that lead us forward, I was taken by surprise when a strange, shrill cry suddenly rung out from somewhere up ahead.

"Is that... an animal?" Mio asked hesitantly, and I nodded. I didn't see what else it could be.

Interest piqued, we quickly moved into the new area. It wasn't a clearing like the other main areas had been - there was much less of a distinction from the rest of the gardens, but the plants in this section were on a noticeably higher plateau. It seemed there were also more shrubs around, but of more interest was the variety small wooden kennels spread around the area; some were painted green and brown to blend in with the surrounding area while others stood out sharply in vibrant colours.

Curiously, there were also chain link fences closing off the raised plot of land from the rest of the gardens. They were about waist height, much like the ones you'd see in a zoo. That, combined with the cry we'd heard...

"Animal enclosures?" I wondered aloud. They really had everything in here. "Honestly, I'm not even surprised anymore."

"I know, I'm expecting anything at this point," Mio agreed, eyeing the kennels with interest. "More importantly, who doesn't love animals? I bet there's someone around here."

The curved path continued on ahead of us, cutting between the two sides of the enclosure. Just as Mio predicted, a female student was up ahead, the light grey jumper knotted around her waist carelessly dragged along the ground as she crouched, cooing at a little critter staring up at her. She had a basic school uniform on, consisting of a white button up shirt, black skirt and thigh high socks, while a bright orange tie dangled loosely around her neck.

"Oh look, it's the last girl. Was I right or what?" Mio asked, crossing a name off her list before we even came up to her. "Hello! Are you Riley?"

"That's me! What's up?" The girl greeted us with keen eyes and a big smile. She had the light tan and toned body of an athlete, with pale brown eyes and matching hair tied into a ponytail and a white ribbon.

"We're your classmates, here to introduce ourselves! I'm Mio Kita, the Ultimate Journalist."

"Oh, right... we have to do that, don't we? Thanks for saving me the trouble!" She spoke enthusiastically, flashing us a peace sign. "I should introduce myself, then. I'm the one and only Ultimate Parkourist! Riley Hamacho!"

* * *

 **Riley Hamacho**

 **Ultimate Parkourist**

* * *

"Nice to meet you. I'm Shinji Tezuka, the Ultimate Therapist," I replied, trying but failing to match her enthusiasm; by this point it felt like I'd introduced myself a hundred times.

"So, the Ultimate Parkourist... parkour, a.k.a. free running. It's kind of like a glorified obstacle course - bypassing the environment to run from point A to point B as fast possible. Climbing buildings and stuff like that," Mio explained, prompting the sudden realisation that relying on her for information—as much as I appreciated it—probably made me look like an idiot. Hopefully she wasn't explaining this thinking that I didn't know what parkour was. "As you might expect from an Ultimate, Riley is super good at it. According to the file, she's very well known in the community."

"Ahaha, well thank you!" Riley grinned widely, clearly revelling in Mio's recount of her talent. "It's got real world application too, you know. I can totally beat a bus when I need to get to school on time!"

"I wonder why they used 'parkourist', though?" Mio wondered. "I thought the proper term was traceuse."

"Don't you think that's getting a bit fancy? They probably thought no one would know what it was," Riley cupped her cheek with one hand, directing a question at me. "I mean, have you heard of it, Shinji?"

"Well, no... but wouldn't a prestigious academy be the most likely to use the proper terms?" I pointed out dutifully.

"Oh, true... maybe they wanna be hip?" She suggested, after giving it approximately zero thought. "Don't give me that look! Like I know what they were thinking!"

"Hmm... that's one more mystery to add to the pile," Mio concluded. Kind of lame for a mystery if you ask me, but I suppose it was still one in the strictest sense of the word. "Anyway, have you looked around this place? What's it like?"

"Well, I only just got here, but check out the animals— it's like a zoo! A little possum thing came over, it's actually kind of—" Riley cheerfully directed our gazes to the ground, stopping herself when she realised there was only empty space. "Oh, it ran away. Good job, guys."

"Oi, don't blame it on us. Your shouting probably scared it away," I retorted.

"Whatever, I'm a parkourist! Indoor voice isn't in my vocabulary!" Riley scoffed, casually waving off my reply. "But you know, there's only little rabbits and stuff here. I wonder where the other animals are?"

"This area is pretty small, so I think it's all we'll get. It's probably more like a nature reserve than a zoo," Mio answered, and I was inclined to agree; considering the habitat here, the selection was probably going to be limited to cute woodland creatures and possibly birds.

"Oh, you're right! Damn it, I should have looked around some more..." She huffed. "Bah, isn't that boring? Where are all the lions and tigers?"

"I think these enclosures are too small for them... besides, wouldn't that be scary? They'd easily be able to get through those fences," I pointed out. I knew the enclosures would probably be constructed differently if there were lions, of course, but it still seemed like asking for trouble.

"That would be pretty bad... but you know, I think we'd make it out okay," Mio replied thoughtfully. "I bet Masanori or Asuka could take them down."

The mental image of one of them body slamming a lion was surprisingly easy to conjure up. "... That does sound like something they'd enjoy, actually. You should put it in the suggestions box."

"Hold up, there are people who can wrestle lions here? I bet I can do that too!" Riley exclaimed, puffing out her chest proudly. "Wait, but I can't even try it... gah, now I'm even more annoyed there's no lions!"

"Hm, too bad..." Mio hummed, momentarily distracted as she jotted something into her notepad. She abruptly turned to me, showing me a page which was now full of crossed out names. "By the way Shinji, check it out. We've only got one more person to meet."

"Wait a sec, you've almost met everyone already!? Oh crap, I'm so behind!" Riley shouted, her eyes wide. "Time to start winging it! See you guys later!"

She dashed off in a panic at impressive speed, not even leaving us a proper chance to bid her goodbye.

Mio turned to me as soon as Riley was gone, clapping her hands together dramatically. "Shinji, let's keep moving too. We're almost done!"

"What are you so excited about? Is it something about the last student?" I asked. It was subtle, but her attitude had changed the moment she'd brought up the last student... Mio was up to something, I was sure of it.

"Of course, it's Xin Sakai! He's our class's Good Luck Ultimate," she said. She suddenly walked behind me, pressing my spine into shape. "C'mon, stand up straight and smile! We've only got one chance to make a good impression."

"Hm? Why?" Not that I had anything against making a good impression, but we didn't have to specially prepare ourselves for the others...

"What do you mean, 'why'? I can't believe you never heard about it. There was such a huge stir about how unusual his talent is."

"Really? I mean, I agree that luck can't exactly be described as a talent, but they have one every year. I didn't realise it was still considered unusual."

"No, it's not that. I'll give you the short version," Mio replied, gesturing for us to start moving as she continued to talk. "You know how the Ultimate Good Luck students are usually picked through a nation-wide lottery? Well, they specially picked this year's one. It caused a bit of an uproar - as it turns out, there were quite a few people who were hoping to be selected that way."

She stepped a bit closer, starting to fuss with my hair and clothes. It was a weirdly intimate process, although the critical look on her face kind of ruined the effect. I thought about protesting, but in the end I decided to let her do as she pleased. "Remember how I said his luck might be affecting us? Hope's Peak has theorized that luck comes in two cycles; good and bad. The problem is, though, Xin's punched a hole in that theory. You see, he doesn't have bad luck cycles."

"What, so he's lucky all the time?"

"Nope, better. His two luck cycles are regular old good luck... and giving good luck to people around him. Fascinating, right?" Her voice was animated with excitement, pulling on my necklace to straighten it out. "He must be a major outlier in this whole luck business, so it figures they sought him out specifically. Apparently they've had his name on file for years."

"So he's periodically a good luck charm to other people? I wonder how that works?" I was honestly rather dubious, but if Hope's Peak was convinced that was his talent, I didn't really have any basis to argue it. "And... I guess that means we're all gonna get really lucky?"

"Yep, that's the crux of it. Which is exactly why we should be trying to get onto his good side!" Finally satisfied with my appearance, she enthusiastically clapped my shoulder. "So, how good are you at sucking up?"

Uh oh. The calculating glint in her eyes was giving me a bad feeling about this. "... What happened to making a good impression?"

"But sucking up IS making a good impression. Take it from me: play your cards right, and you can get anyone wrapped around your finger."

I wasn't convinced - brown-nosing one of our classmates right off the bat was a demeaning prospect, but I could at least get where she was coming from. Being able to utilise the Ultimate Luck was certainly nothing to scoff at. Still...

"You do know we're going to be classmates, right?" I asked. "We're not supposed to be mining him for good luck. I feel like we shouldn't need to put in so much effort."

"I know that. But you never know, he could have a terrible personality— and if we don't get along with him, we might miss out on it. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Trust me, it'll be fine."

Famous last words... not that it was going to dissuade her. I decided to try a different line of questioning.

"How are you planning on finding him, anyway?"

"Easy. We look around and keep an eye out! How hard can it be?"

"Very. I dunno about you, but I can barely make sense of this place," I replied. I was honestly surprised we hadn't managed to accidentally backtrack as we walked around. Of all the things Hope's Peak could have given us to start out, we could really have used a map more than a glorified email service.

"Good point. Maybe we'll get lucky?" Realising what she just said, Mio repeated it with more conviction. "In fact, that's his talent! I believe in his Ultimate Luck to guide us to him!"

"... You're joking, right?"

"Nope. C'mon, let's go!"

It took a little bit of effort, but we eventually managed to identify a section of the gardens we hadn't been to yet. Having completed a full transition into journalist mode, Mio insisted on scouting ahead beforehand, forcing me to crouch with her behind a nicely sculpted hedge and attempt to peek through the gaps. Sure enough, there was a male figure lounging around on a set of marble garden seats. Though his back was turned to us, I could see golden blond hair, a red tassel earring and a gratuitous amount of jewelry adorning his arms, currently occupied with restlessly tossing around some kind of ball.

"That's him? Are you sure?" I asked. "Considering your track record on identifying the other students..."

"Oi," she chided, pinching my arm. "I can't be wrong this time, he's literally the only person we haven't met. Besides, who else could that golden aura belong to?"

Now that she mentioned it, there did seem to be a golden tint to the light that reflected off him... but describing it as an aura was downright ridiculous. "Right, but I still really don't think we should be sucking up to him. How are we going to make friends with him if we're not being genuine?"

"Shinji," Mio gave me a look, "I think it's pretty clear that you're never going to be the Ultimate Journalist with an attitude like that. Let me tell you, a little flattery goes a long way."

She started to head off, but I grabbed her wrist. "Seriously, I really think this isn't a good idea."

"Shush, it's gonna be great. Just sit back and watch the master at work!" Waving off my hand - and my protests - she broke her cover and started to head towards our classmate.

"But he's going to— Mio!" I scrambled after her, trying not to be too loud. The last thing this potential train wreck needed was the knowledge that we were creeping on him beforehand.

I managed to fall into step beside her just as he turned to the sound of our footsteps, staring at us with curious purple eyes. He was very handsome in a pretty kind of way, wearing a large sweater, shorts, and socks pulled up to his knees. Honestly, golden aura and gratuitous jewellery did actually just about sum it up; a multitude of earrings, bracelets, anklets, rings, even his belt and a giant, ancient-egyptian styled necklace shone a glorious gold in the morning sun, all studded with brilliant red rubies. No doubt the entire outfit was as ridiculously expensive as it was gaudy, but he did seem nice enough. His mouth curled into a charming grin as we approached.

"Sorry, I don't mean to bother you, but I couldn't help but notice... Are you Xin Sakai?" Mio's adoring tone was a jarring contrast to her other greetings, and disturbingly convincing. If it weren't for the conversation we'd just had before, I might have been taken in.

"Yep, that's right. You're here to do introductions for me, right?" He replied, eyeing her curiously. His response struck me as strange, but she ploughed on before I could ask about it.

"O-oh, can I really?" She said excitedly. Personally, I found the amount of gusto in her voice to be slightly unsettling, but he didn't seem to notice at all. "I'll do my best!"

* * *

 **Xin Sakai**

 **Ultimate Good Luck**

* * *

"I'm Mio Kita, and this guy is Shinji Tezuka! I'm so happy to finally meet you!" She sounded rather unnervingly like a fangirl.

"Cool, thanks! Nice to meet you, too," Xin replied. His smile dropped for a more questioning look, and he directed his next question at me. "Oh, I've been meaning to ask... this is actually Hope's Point, right? Are you in this year's class too?

"Yep, right on both counts," I said. Sounds like he was just as confused about the situation as everyone else, but wasn't what caught my attention. "But, er... don't you mean Hope's Peak?"

My impudence earned me a sharp elbow in the stomach courtesy of Mio, but Xin didn't seem to mind being corrected - in fact, he snapped his fingers in recognition, eyes brightening.

"Yeah, that's the one! Damn it, I knew I was close," he laughed. "I'd never heard of it 'til I got the invitation, had you? I thought it was some kind of scam at first."

I sensed Mio was about to enthusiastically agree, so I just talked over her. "Hm, really? You've never heard of Hope's Peak?"

Mio's glare burned into the side of my head as Xin replied to me. "Sure. I mean, the whole title thing is pretty unbelievable, right? I'm still confused about why I'm the 'Ultimate Good Luck'... seems a little random. I was shocked to find out it was actually a thing."

... It was slowly starting to dawn on me as to what kind of person Xin actually was.

"Still, I wish I was given something cooler. Like... 'Ultimate Helicopter Pilot', maybe?" He continued, oblivious to the confusion that must have showing on my face. "Hey, what title did you get? Want to swap?"

"Sure, I'd be happy to swap! Ultimate Good Luck is a pretty amazing title, if you ask me!" I thought Xin was asking me specifically, but Mio cut in rather brazenly.

"Wait, you're a student too? Oh no, I'm so sorry! My bad," he smiled apologetically at her, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "You did the introduction, so I thought you were a servant..."

"No worries! Happens all the time!" She said brightly, and I held back a disbelieving snort. We actually had the Ultimate Servant in our class, and they both sounded about equally servile at the moment. "I'm the Ultimate Journalist."

"Journalist? Hey, that sounds cool! What is it?"

...

Both of us stood in stunned silence as we processed what he actually asked. Surprisingly, Mio was the first to respond. "Um, you don't know what a journalist is?"

Despite his naive nature it seemed even he picked up on her tone, as his next words sounded a little defensive. "What? C'mon, that's not fair. I really don't know."

"Journalists investigate current events and write articles about them for the public to read. It's basically distribution of information," she explained hesitantly, watching carefully for any signs he was joking. "Does that ring any bells?"

I could barely believe my eyes, but Xin shook his head with a blank expression. If he didn't know what a journalist was, then that would mean he had probably never read the news.

At least, I thought so. Was it even possible to be that sheltered...?

"Woah, that sounds pretty complicated. You must be really smart, right?" Xin's fingers suddenly slipped as he talked, accidentally letting the ball drop to the ground— or so I thought, but he left it lying there after giving it a passing glance. His relaxed posture hadn't changed at all, and it didn't look like he had any plans to pick it up.

Curiosity quickly got the better of me, and I picked up the ball myself. "Xin? You dropped your ball."

I held it out for him, but on closer inspection it wasn't a ball at all; artfully crafted from gold and studded with all kinds of precious gems, it was more like an imitation of a royal orb. That said, imitation was probably a poor choice of words - it seemed to be made with legitimate materials, so it was probably just as expensive.

"That thing? It's okay, the servants will pick it up later. ... Wait, do people normally have to clean up after themselves?" I tried to pass it to him when he didn't move to take it back, but he waved my hand away. "Nah, you keep it. If I take it, I'll probably leave it somewhere again..."

"Really? Are you sure?" I asked.

He seemed to misinterpret my disbelief, and began to hastily apologise. "Oh, I don't want to bother you! I know I shouldn't dump something so cheap on you, so you can throw it away if you want. I'll buy you something later to make up for it. What would be good? Should I buy you an island?"

I struggled to come up with anything coherent, as he seemed to be entirely serious. "An... an island?"

"Really? Wow, Xin, that's amazingly generous!" Mio had no such problems, gushing with an expression so full of adoration it bordered on predatory.

"Oh no, it's nothing! Honestly!" Xin smiled again, happily. Well, at least she was fooling someone. "I'll need to look into the paperwork, though. Sorry, but I should get going..."

He waved a short goodbye, and with few quick footsteps disappeared into the gardens. Mio's normal personality snapped back into place as soon as he left.

"Who's against sucking up now, Shinji? You just scored yourself an island!" Mio said, looking triumphant on my behalf.

"Uh huh. You do know he was obviously joking about that, don't you?"

"He seemed pretty serious to me," she replied. "Although you must have some pretty serious cash to throw it around that easily..."

The clothes he was wearing did look awfully expensive... I had to admit if anyone was going to be serious about it, it would be Xin.

"I guess I didn't need to worry impressions in the end," Mio mused. "He's nice, even if he is really sheltered."

Before I had the chance to respond, however, a disembodied voice suddenly assailed my ears. There must have been speakers all over the place because it felt like words were coming from every direction at once, disorienting me so much I barely registered the words being spoken.

" _Hello everyone, are you enjoying yourselves? Orientation time is now over!_ " The chipper voice was clearly feminine but not entirely natural, as if it was the product of a voice changer or manufactured completely. " _Please make your way to the fountain in the center of the Sector!_ "

Painful voices aside, that was our cue to get going. The fountain... if memory served, that's where we'd met Kaede and Beatrice.

"Sounds like introductions are over. Shall we?" Mio asked me with a voice full of anticipation, seemingly much less bothered by the strange voice effect than I was. Our previous conversation forgotten, she eagerly looked around for the path that lead back to our destination.

I nodded and fell into step with her when she picked a direction, trying to decide whether my own feeling of anticipation bubbling in my gut was the good or bad kind.

I had no way to tell what lay in store, but I knew one thing for sure - _something_ had begun.

* * *

 **And that's it for the introductions! Things have been moving pretty slow cause I've folded in most of the exploration of the area into it as well, but we can get to the good stuff now.**

 **Now I also don't have to write 6k+ word chapters (at least until the trials...) to get all the characters introduced, I'll be aiming for shorter, more regular updates.**

 **Handy recap, part 3:**

 **Toranosuke Takasu - Ultimate Stunt Driver**

 **Ayano Shiyami - Ultimate Mycologist**

 **Genichi Azai - Ultimate Urban Strategist**

 **Riley Hamacho - Ultimate Parkourist**

 **Xin Sakai - Ultimate Good Luck**


	5. Zone 1: The New High School Life

**TheRoseShadow21 - Xin's talent was the idea of the person who submitted him! I think it's a pretty cool twist on the usual Good Luck talent, so I was happy to accept it :P**

 **FenMoon - Fair point about Mio! She has a particular character trait I was going for related to how she acts around different people, but it seems to have not come through that well haha. I think writing these introductions has given me a better idea of her character though, so hopefully she'll be more consistent from here on out.**

 **Fryllabrille201 - Ah yes, poor Mio... she'll get her chance at redemption soon :P It's also funny you mention a map, because I've been working on one! I'm about to post it to deviantart as I write this.**

 **But yes, as mentioned in the sentence immediately above this one, a map of the area has been posted! As always, there is a link to it on my profile (and you better check it out, it took me several hours to finish :P)**

* * *

As we headed back towards the fountain clearing, I saw Mio eyeing Xin's ball with curiosity - well, I suppose it was mine now. "So, are you going to keep it? Sounds like he's expecting you throw it away."

"I'll hold onto it. It's too nice to throw away, and it was a gift, so I can't exactly give it away." ... Well, I think it was a gift. Xin seemed to think he was lumping me with the equivalent of a piece of trash, but I assumed it was meant as one anyway.

"He gave it to you so casually, too... how much do you think he's worth?" She wondered. "Xin's file did say he was rich, but he must be way more loaded than I thought..."

"Ah, probably a lot..." I replied, in what was most likely the understatement of the year. Considering he'd offered to buy me an island I could have guessed he was rich, but I hadn't properly considered how much money he might have until that moment.

Assuming his attitude towards the amounts he was willing to throw around was proportional to his wealth... it was probably a mind bogglingly large amount, way more than I'd ever hope to see in my life time.

We didn't dwell on the topic, discussing all the different personalities we'd seen as we approached the clearing. Upon arrival, I could see a few students had made it to our destination before us; to our right Asuka was waiting on a clearly zoned-out Xin, while Kaede and Masanori were over by the fountain, crowded around a flower that had been placed on its rim. More specifically, it was a type of flower that I actually recognised— a sunflower. It was much shorter than the person-sized sunflowers I'd seen in pictures but was otherwise perfectly ordinary, shooting straight up from the terracotta clay pot it had been planted in.

Sunflowers seemed to be coming up a lot. First the little picture on the email, then the sunflower statue, and now an actual sunflower had appeared. I had no idea what the person behind it was trying to get at, but the placement of it right in front of the fountain statue definitely wasn't a coincidence.

We made a beeline for the pair by the fountain, getting a better look at what they were doing as we got closer. Masanori was crouched down, inspecting the flower with interest while Kaede was staring daggers at it, looking like she was ready to kick it into the fountain.

"Shinji! Mio!" As soon as Masanori saw us, he waved us over enthusiastically. "You guys missed some pretty weird stuff!"

"Oh really? What kind of weird stuff?" Mio asked, eyeing the flower with curiosity.

"Ugh, this is so ridiculous...!" Kaede ground out, sounding as upset as she looked. "It was _talking!_ It says it's our teacher!"

"Um... are you feeling okay, Kaede?" I asked, a little concerned. Last time I checked, potted plants couldn't talk.

"Gyahaha! Sounds crazy, right?" Masanori let out a hearty laugh, patting her arm. "But it's true. That announcer chick who called us here is this flower."

If two people heard the flower talking, it probably had some merit... but I still felt the need to point out the obvious. "But flowers can't talk... how does that even work?"

"Heh, that's the part I'm working on." He replied, turning back to continue his work. "Kaede, you see anything weird? Maybe there are speakers on it somewhere."

"Um, let me get a closer look..." Kaede reluctantly crouched down to join Masanori, examining the flower pot from the other side. I was considering helping out too, when I suddenly heard someone speak from close behind me.

"Hey guys! Whatcha looking at?" That energetic voice was immediately recognisable as belonging to Juzou. I turned to find the guy himself next to me, leaning forward to peer at the sunflower with Genichi beside him. Behind them, I noticed other students were rapidly filtering into the clearing as well; Asahara had crept in at some point, and it looked like Nichira and Lana had just arrived together. I caught sight of Toranosuke too - standing off to the side sans jacket - but it didn't seem like he nor Asahara had any intention of joining the conversation.

"Hm, a sunflower..." Genichi looked at the flower with a thoughtful expression, seemingly talking more to himself than everyone else. "That's strange. I didn't see any of those when I was walking around. I wonder where this one came from?"

Masanori shrugged. "Beats me, it was here when me and Kaede came in. But it talks, so I bet it's special!"

"It talks? Didn't your mother tell you not to do drugs?" Nichira interjected as she walked over, apparently having overheard the conversation.

"Talkin' or not, looks healthy... neat!" Lana pitched in, with a scheming look on her face. "Who's the gardener here, anyway? I've got some hot 'escape to the country' real estate that could use some extra value."

"Hey everyone! What's up?" There was another greeting, this time from Riley. She waved to everyone gathered as she jogged over, Yuuta in tow. "Ah, Yuuta, we're the last ones... how did everyone get here so quick!?"

"Ihihi! Have you tried not being an idiot?" Beatrice also announced her arrival, calling from across the clearing. As I looked in her direction I saw Ayano too, who looked like she had come in with the Ultimate Genius.

"Pardon me, Beatrice... but we only arrived slightly before Riley and Yuuta did." Ayano added dutifully, but Beatrice scoffed dismissively.

"Pfft, whatever. That just means I can beat people even with a height disadvantage!"

Now we were all gathered as the announcement had ordered us to, we clustered near the fountain and eventually formed a vague rendition of a semicircle around the sunflower. Everyone stood around, idly chattering as we waited for something to happen... and when it did, it was as unthinkably strange as the rest of this place.

"Hello, everyone! Welcome to Sector Earth!" The announcer's voice greeted us enthusiastically once again, but when I turned to the source of the new voice I could barely believe what I was seeing. It was just as Kaede said - the sound seemed to be coming directly from the flower sitting in front of us.

What's more... in front of our eyes, the sunflower sprang to life. The stem twisted and began to move, swaying rhythmically from side to side while the head looked up and around, as if it were a face looking up at us.

"Gah! What the fu-" Juzou had switched places with Kaede while I wasn't looking and had been crouching next to the sunflower when it moved, falling backwards in shock with a surprised yelp. "It's talking!?"

"Hm? Oh cool, it's moving." Xin spoke into the surprised silence, wandering over from where he had been standing before. He didn't seem at all bothered by the development, looking at the moving flower with mild curiosity. "Wait... do flowers normally do that?"

"Of course they don't! What planet are you livin' on!?"

"Ehehe, I'm not any ordinary flower- I'm your teacher! Please call me Flower-chan!" The flower spoke again, this time clapping its - or her, judging by the voice - leaves together like they were arms. It moved more naturally than I thought possible for a plant, giving it a bizarrely human like quality. "Aah, isn't this place lovely? You'll be staying here for the time being!"

"Wait... hold on. I'll just roll with the fact you're a talking flower, but did you just call this place 'Sector Earth'?" Genichi spoke calmly, taking the situation in stride a lot more smoothly than most of us. "What's going on here? We're supposed to be in Hope's Peak Academy."

"Eh? But this is Hope's Peak Academy!" She replied in a confused tone, seeming far too convinced that was the obvious answer. "If you check the message I sent you on your student ID, I included the school seal!"

I pulled my ID out of my pocket and checked the message again, half expecting something that would prove this was some kind of weird dream or prank. No matter how much I looked, however, the Hope's Peak official emblem was still there, exactly the same as the first time I saw it.

So if what she was claiming was true, then our teacher really was a sunflower? It was patently ridiculous, but I was giving it more consideration than I thought I would... maybe this place was rubbing off on me.

The biggest point she had going for her was that Hope's Peak probably wouldn't mess around, not for a seemingly pointless joke, and definitely not on this scale. If I trusted in that seal, then the answer couldn't be anything else.

"Don't be stupid! This is obviously not a school!" Kaede objected, far less accepting of that answer than I was.

"Ehehe... we made a change to the curriculum, so there's been some top secret renovations." Flower-chan explained, brushing off Kaede's protest. "I turned the academy into this place, all so you can experience your new high school life...!"

"Our... new high school life?" Mio murmured into Flower-chan's melodramatic pause, voicing thoughts very similar to my own. "Why am I suddenly getting a bad feeling about this..."

"The high school life... of mutual love!"

Mutual... love?

The moment we heard those dreadful words, the silence broke into a chaos of shouting and protest. I could see expressions of panic, bewilderment and horror reflected in the expressions of the other students, but above it all there was a distinct atmosphere in the air.

That suffocating, horrible atmosphere... I'd never felt before, but its name came to me naturally all the same.

It was... despair.

"Ack, that name... it's...!" Riley shrieked, her mouth hanging open. "We've been trapped in a dating sim!"

"W, what the hell is this!?" Beatrice's expression held a similar amount of horror, jabbing an accusatory finger at the flower. "I'm 15, you stupid weed! What kind of audience are you catering to!?"

"Eh? No, please don't get the wrong idea!" It seemed this wasn't the reaction Flower-chan was expecting as she scrambled to salvage the situation. "It's not just romantic love... it's love! Love!"

"What other kinds of love are there!?" Kaede cut in angrily. She looked like she was about to have an aneurysm. "Damn it! Why is this happening!?"

"Guys, let's not panic just yet." No one else seemed interested in listening to Flower-chan so I stepped in, attempting to restore calm as best I could. She was our only source of information right now, so I wanted to see what else she had to say. "Shouldn't we give her a chance to explain herself?"

The second part was mostly directed at Kaede, who was clearly the most upset. Just as I'd hoped it calmed her down enough to elicit a sigh and nod, although she still didn't look very happy with how the situation was unfolding.

"Ah, how pathetic... I already need my student's help to restore order..." Flower-chan lamented, but she quickly brushed it aside and brightened up again. "Anyway, please don't worry! This is part of our special orientation program to help you all get to know each other. Ehehe... and now everyone is here, we can proceed to phase 2!"

"When you put it that way, I guess it doesn't sound too bad..." Masanori wondered aloud. He seemed to be considering it, but it said a lot about her plan that even someone like him wasn't totally on board. "What's phase 2?"

"Ooh, it makes me happy to see you're getting into it!" She exclaimed, horribly misinterpreting Masanori's level of enthusiasm. Probably on purpose. "Phase 2, start! Everyone, please split into pairs for some one-on-one time!"

That didn't seem too horrible... I guess. On the surface, splitting into pairs wasn't super out of the ordinary for an orientation, but I still couldn't shake the feeling I didn't like where she was going.

"After some time had passed you'll be randomly assigned another student to spend time with, but you can choose your first partner!" Flower-chan continued. "I've taken everyone's preferences into account, so please find that boy or girl you like and get to know them more!"

"Preferences...!?" Juzou cut in hastily. "Oi, oi, what do you mean by that?"

"It's pretty obvious what she's talking about. I mean, you're a teenage guy... I bet Flower-chan looked at your browsing history." Nichira sniped, smiling in satisfaction as he physically recoiled at her words.

"H-hey, leave my browsing history out of this!"

"Ohoho... You're into weird things, aren't ya? Too bad there aren't any midgets here, they seem right up your alley." Lana joined in gleefully, putting her hand on her chin in mock thought.

"Don't put words in my mouth!" He yelled back, shaking his fist at her. "Midgets are not up my alley! Not even close!"

"Ugh... what am I going to do..." Asahara paid no heed to the banter between Juzou and the two girls, going off on his own melancholy tangent. "I... I don't like girls..."

"Ehehe, please don't worry about that! We're very accepting here!" Flower-chan said proudly, although her reassurance seemed to throw him into a panic more than anything.

"W-wait! That's not what I meant! I don't like boys either... I mean, I do like girls, I just don't... like..." He gave up halfway through his explanation, letting out a desolate sigh. "I'm destined to be misunderstood... good communication skills are too hard for me..."

"Hey, wait." Mio had been deep in thought for a while, but she finally took the opportunity to speak up. "Flower-chan, isn't this basically speed dating?"

Flower-chan didn't respond to her for a suspicious amount of time, seemingly lost for words again. "Wh... what are you talking about? It's not-"

"Don't try to deny it, you dumb flower." Toranosuke said flatly. "One-on-one time, really? You're even adjusting for sexuality... how is it not speed dating?"

"Uh... w, well, that is..." She stammered, desperately struggling to come up with a reply. "I-I just wanted to make sure you guys are compatible with each other!"

That didn't help her case whatsoever, but she was saved momentarily saved from further interrogation when Xin suddenly piped up again.

"Hey, Flower-chan... what's 'speed dating'?" He asked naively, as clueless as ever. "Are we looking at fossils?"

"Haven't you heard of a date? Ehehe, it's where two people get to know each other, and hold hands, and-" Flower-chan was only too happy to answer his question, cutting herself off as she probably realised what it sounded like. "Um, not that-"

"So this _is_ speed dating..." Yuuta muttered tensely. "That's on a totally different level to orientation..."

I inadvertently found myself glancing around to try and get a look the others while simultaneously avoiding eye contact, and I could tell I wasn't the only one. There was a sense of restlessness in the air, and I was no exception - the situation had suddenly turned into one similar to pairing up for a group project, only we apparently had to consider romantic prospects. In other words, a whole lot weirder.

"N-no, it's not! It's really not speed dating, so please pair up with your preferred partner!" Flower-chan insisted, soldiering on despite our dissent and the fact she had totally dug her own grave at this point. "I've also unlocked the map feature on your student ID, so please explore Sector Earth to your heart's content!"

"This is a joke, right? Hope's Peak wouldn't seriously organise speed dating..." Mio said uncertainly. I wanted to agree, but I wasn't sure about anything anymore. I had hoped meeting the administration would have solved some mysteries about how we ended up here, but the appearance of Flower-chan had only made things even more bizarre.

"Anyway, please enjoy yourselves!" The flower said, the cheerful tone from her greeting returning. She was apparently content to leave her train wreck of an explanation as it was, she spoke with a finality that made it clear the conversation was over. "I'll leave you now. Please choose quickly so you can get to know your partner!"

"Flower-chan, wai-" I started but she abruptly shot forwards, moving incredibly fast for what should have been an immobile potted plant. It must have been wheels on the underside of the pot or something, but it was difficult to tell as she became a blur of speed as she fled the clearing.

Even ignoring that, she left me—no, all of us—with a lot of unanswered questions... and some pairing up to do.

* * *

 **Oh yes. It's time for some totally-not-speed-dating! We won't be seeing everyone, of course, and I have a few pairs in mind already... but I'm interested to see if there's any students you want to see spend some time together. Gotta get those ships sailing, and all that :P**

 **In all likelihood there will be 4 rounds of speed dates, so how quickly the next chapter comes out will depend on whether I split it into 2 chapters or do it all at once. Either way, I'll see you then!**


	6. Zone 1: Ultimate Matchmaking

**Nemris - We're stuck with Shinji for the foreseeable future, unfortunately :p**

 **I didn't get this quite out in time for Christmas, but belated Merry Christmas anyway!** **I'm actually surprised at how long this got, so there's only 2 of the 4 speed dates this chapter... but hey, character development!**

* * *

Xin was the first to speak up, confusion written all over his pretty face. "Sorry... I don't think I get it. What are we doing?"

"If I've read the situation correctly, we need to pair up and spend time with each other," Ayano supplied helpfully. "It's awfully strange, but that emblem... I'm sure it's the Hope's Peak symbol."

"Hmm, and it would be extremely difficult to impersonate Hope's Peak..." Genichi mused, his hand touching his chin in thought. "I don't know what the school is thinking, but this is definitely the real deal."

Beatrice angrily stamped her feet on the ground. "Grr, I'm too young for this! I'm outta here!"

"Wait, Beatrice. We all think it's as weird as you do, but this is still a part of our orientation." The Urban Strategist quickly called her back before she could leave. "Plus, if you go off by yourself we'll have an odd number..."

"Hmph, fine!" Her sharp eyes scanned the clearing in search of someone who measured up to her standards. After one quick sweep her gaze locked onto Asahara, who was still cowering off to the side. "Asahara! You're coming with me!"

"Eh? Wait, but—" He tried to protest, but Beatrice grabbed his ear and started dragging him away against his will. "Noooooooo!"

It wasn't Genichi's intention, but I couldn't help but feel like we just threw Asahara to the metaphorical wolves. I wanted to intervene, but if this really was speed dating the partners should swap pretty frequently. He should be fine. I hope.

"Hey, Xin!" Mio called out to the Ultimate Good Luck. "Want to come with me?"

"Sure, if you want to." He immediately accepted, although he still seemed uncertain. "But I still don't really get what a 'speed date' is."

"No problem! It'll probably be more fun that way. I'll teach you all about it, okay?"

"Alright, awesome." He smiled, following Mio as she gestured for them to start walking. "So is this a race or something?"

She had a short laugh at his expense, patting him on the shoulder affectionately. "Oh, Xin. Let's start from the top, shall we? Remember what Flower-chan said dates were? ..."

Lana watched them go with a displeased expression. "So my would-be sidekick is trying to usurp me, hm... looks like I'll hafta take stock."

... Sounds like Mio wasn't the only one looking to spend some time with Xin. Maybe that sidekick contract wasn't going through after all.

"We better keep pairing off then, huh? Guess I'll put myself out there," Masanori muttered to himself, before looking up to address the group. "Alrighty, listen up! Asahara might not like dudes, but I do. Who's game?"

"Ah... Masanori, you like men?" Even in a state of surprise, Ayano's tone was as polite as ever. Adjusting her glasses, she began to look through the male students with interest. "My, how interesting..."

"Well, well, the hunky fireman is gay... colour me surprised," Lana said to herself with a grin. Her head was tilted back as she played with her earring, somehow managing to look down her nose at him despite the height difference.

"Gyahaha! Don't worry, now. There's plenty of fish in the sea for ya!"

"Oho, don't worry about me, hot stuff. Big tough guys aren't my kinda thing, ya know? I like my men with big assets."

"Assets?" Juzou started incredulously. "You say I have weird kinks but then you come out with that?"

"I'm talkin' financial assets, ya dummy! I ain't depraved, unlike you."

"That just makes you a gold digger! Since when is that any better!"

"Gold digger? Oho, nothin' of the sort. You're talkin' to the richest woman on the high seas!" She replied.

"So! Who wants some?" Masanori brought the conversation back on topic and put his hands on his hips, scanning over the guys. "Flower-chan didn't leave me all lonely, did she?"

"... Toranosuke," Nichira spoke up out of the blue. "I think you should take him on a date."

As the Ultimate Researcher she probably had the most authority out of all of us - bar the man himself, of course - in telling what Toranosuke's sexuality was, but it came out so randomly it seemed equally likely she had just said it for kicks.

"Huh? What?" Toranosuke glanced towards us at the mention of his name. He clearly hadn't been listening to the conversation.

"Gyahaha! I don't hear a 'no'!" Masanori laughed, practically throwing himself at Toranosuke and slinging an arm around his neck. "C'mon, you're comin' with me!"

"What the— hey! Let go of me, damn it...!" He hissed, but even Toranosuke was no match for Masanori's strength. He had more dignity than to be dragged off totally against his will, at least, but he was forced to fall into step with the taller man while Nichira snickered at his fate.

"I wanna check out the cafe, is that alright? I haven't had anything since I got here, I'm starving! ..." Masanori happily chatted away as he pulled Toranosuke with him, his voice quickly becoming obscured by the trees as they left the clearing.

"If two guys are going together, now the genders are uneven," Genichi said thoughtfully, watching them go. "I guess two of the girls need to go together as well..."

"Well, that's not my problem!" Juzou put his hands behind his head, sidling closer to the purple-haired girl standing on the edge of our circle. "Say, Asuka, how about—"

"Hey, I don't think so!" Kaede cut in forcefully. "Asuka, go with Ayano!"

"Yes, understood!" Asuka shouted, bowing and making her way to Ayano's side while Juzou gaped speechlessly.

"Sorry, I chose someone without thinking. Is that okay with you?"

"I don't like girls myself, but I don't mind," Ayano answered, looking up at Asuka curiously. "I believe I need to give an order...? Let's go, Asuka."

"Yes, at once!" Asuka bowed again, following her closely as she walked off.

"Argh, damn it..." Juzou complained, running his hand through his hair. "Why is everyone tryin' to cut me off!? Who are you going with then, Kaede!?"

"I'm going with... Shinji." After a moment of deliberation, she turned to me. "Um... If that's okay with you."

"Oh, sure." I hadn't expected the sudden invitation, but I quickly accepted.

She nodded, starting to move as I followed close behind. "C'mon, let's go." Considering she was the one who asked me, she could look a bit happier about it.

"Oi, what about us people who aren't looking for a relationship?" Riley's voice echoed back to us as we left the clearing. "They should make, like... speed dating for singles!"

"You know speed dating _is_ for singles, right...?" Yuuta replied cautiously.

"Yeah, well... you know what I mean!"

* * *

Kaede sighed again as she leaned against the railing, staring out into the distance.

After we left the fountain clearing together, the two of us checked out the new map Flower-chan had added to our students IDs - a menu had been enabled along the side, with a tab marked 'MAP'. At Kaede's suggestion we headed for the glass walkway above us, which seemed to be actually called the 'observation deck'. The only way to access it was through an elevator along the north edge so we quickly made our way up the paths in silence, which pretty much summed up the events leading to the present.

Since then, Kaede had been forlornly looking down at the gardens below us while studiously avoiding eye contact with me.

It was... well, it was pretty awkward.

"Kaede... are you alright?" I asked, not willing to endure the silence any longer.

"I don't know. Um, sorry for dragging you along." She finally looked up at me, giving me an apologetic grimace. "I was really looking forwards to going to Hope's Peak, but this really hasn't been my day."

"Haha... it's been a pretty strange day, hasn't it?"

"I know objectively it's a really nice place, but I just can't bring myself to like it." Kaede started to speak after a short pause. Her voice was quiet, hesitant. "I was actually really looking forward to attending Hope's Peak. I thought that meeting Ultimate students would be really interesting. You know, seeing what you have to be like to get ahead in a particular area."

I nodded along sympathetically, already getting a better understanding of the girl next to me. It sounded like she considered herself apart from me and the rest of our class, but Kaede was in the same boat as the rest of us - Sector Earth was far beyond anything anyone had expected, her included. The difference between 'exceeded expectations' and 'failed to meet expectations' was just in how you looked at it.

"But now I'm here, they're all kind of weird... I guess I should have expected it, but I was hoping for a little more normality," she continued, her gaze returning to the ground. "And now this speed dating... everyone is really weird, but you're the lesser of two evils. Well, lesser of eight evils. No offence."

Well... good to know she picked me because of my merit as a person. "What, don't you like me?"

"Oh, I didn't mean it like that. It's more like... um, I feel like I'm talking to a therapist," Kaede said slowly, her brow creasing as she tried to articulate her thoughts. "Even in a casual setting like this. It's a bit hard to describe... It's like there's this weird compulsion to confide in you."

I frowned, although I wasn't entirely certain whether I should be taking it as an insult or not. "Why didn't you ask one of the other guys, then? Yuuta, or Genichi?"

"Yuuta? If you think he's normal, then I think we use a different metric." She spoke with a sceptical tone, crossing her arms. She did seem to consider the Urban Strategist, however. "I guess Genichi isn't so bad, though. He's nice, but isn't 'Ultimate Urban Strategist' totally weird? I bet he was involved with gangs or something."

"Uh, you think so? Isn't organised crime a bit of a stretch?" From what Mio told me, his file really didn't clear up what an Urban Strategist was, but I was confused by her sudden jump in logic.

"Well, you know... gangs are urban, aren't they? Maybe I just thought that because of the eyepatch." I wondered if she just lumped everything she considered 'weird' into one big pile, because I wasn't really seeing the connection. "Anyway, did you know he was the only one who didn't immediately assume I was some kind of assassin? I know Ultimate Sniper technically covers my talent, but everyone thinks I'm a weirdo. This is all Hope's Peak's fault."

"Isn't an assassin what a sniper is? To be fair, it is the natural assumption." In fact, if you were counting the discrepancy between talent and personality as weird, she was probably one of the weirdest students in the class.

"I know... that's why I hate it. Why couldn't they have used 'marksman' or something? It's not like I've actually done any sniping!" I raised an eyebrow at her indignant tone, and she continued after a pause. "... Okay, that might not be entirely true, but not enough to base a title off it!"

So she had done sniping before... still, I didn't want to antagonise Kaede so I thought better of bringing it up. "I bet it'll be a good story to tell in the future, right? Even if the title isn't so great, it's still part of the talent that got you into Hope's Peak, so you should be proud of it. ... Just don't assassinate me if I say something wrong."

I laughed at the exasperated look she shot me, but a small smile gave away her amusement. "That's easy for you to say. I bet no one's tried to say you're brainwashing people with your therapy."

"Oi, don't jinx it!" It was her turn to laugh, and I was rather pleased to hear her starting to talk comfortably with me. "Oh, but now that we're on topic... what does being the Ultimate Sniper entail, anyway?"

"It's pretty much what you'd expect, honestly... I'm very good at shooting things. I'm sure my shots still have a lot of room to improve, though."

"Oooh, you mean like taking trick shots and stuff like that? Can you ricochet bullets yet?" I cracked a laugh as she kicked me in the shin.

"Shut it, Shinji. I hear that enough from everyone else already— hm?"

Just at that moment, my ID buzzed from inside my pocket. Judging from her reaction, Kaede's ID had done the same thing.

"Huh... looks like our time might be up." I pulled mine out and switched back to the mail service, where an unread mail was waiting. Inside, there was a name I had really hoped I wouldn't see - Lana Nagamizu.

"Oh no... I'm with Juzou..." Kaede drew in a sharp intake of breath from beside me, her voice filled with dread. "Why him, of all people...? He's a total pervert. I can sense it."

I grinned. "You'll be fine. Just shoot him if he tries anything weird."

"Hey, c'mon!" She put her hands on her hips, giving me a look of half-hearted disapproval. "I feel better after talking to you, so I suppose I'll let you off this time. ... Thanks for listening, by the way."

"Hey, it's what I'm good at." I tried to be modest about her gratitude, but I couldn't help but smile. "I guess we better get going, then."

"Ah... yeah, you're right," Kaede agreed reluctantly, and together we started to walk back towards the elevator. "Good luck with Lana."

"You too." Somehow, I had the feeling I'd need it.

* * *

"Lana... What are we doing?"

"Hm, whaddaya call it...stalking? Now be quiet, or they'll hear ya," she whispered impatiently, pushing my head down to make me crouch lower.

Well... points for honesty, I suppose. There was really no other way to describe the incredibly suspicious way we were crouching behind a hedge, trying to stay out of sight while Lana watched Xin and Ayano happily chat away like a hawk. In fact, I think this was the same hedge Mio made me hide behind earlier today.

"No, I meant that in a more existential kind of way. What's so interesting about Ayano and Xin?" I pressed, vainly trying to distract her from her task. Lana had found me as soon as I parted ways with Kaede, wasting no time in frogmarching me all the way over to our current location - an obscure little clearing that didn't seem to be marked on the map. Since then, I had been forced into idly standing by while she put all of her focus into watching Xin and Ayano.

"Remember the Nagamizu-patented Great Six Secrets to Success in Business, Shinji?" She wagged her finger in my general direction, and I had to suppress the urge to roll my eyes at her. This had to have been about the third time she'd mentioned it. "Rule number two: Keep your eyes on the prize."

She had yet to mention what exactly the prize was, but from what I could gather it seemed to be Xin... or his money, anyway.

"Seriously, can we do something else? If we get busted we are going to look like creepers." Ten minutes ago I never thought I'd say this, but I'd rather be on a more regular date with her.

"Well, what do you wanna do? Play twenty questions?"

"Yes? It's less weird than stalking people." She said that like twenty questions was the weird option. Kaede wasn't just rubbing off on me... right?

She sighed and shook her head disapprovingly, which probably would have had more of an effect if she was actually looking at me. "Shinji, Shinji... seriously, do ya live in an old folk's home? I thought people watching was something you landlubbers did."

"But this isn't people watching..."

Her eyes snapped to lock gazes with mine. It seemed our conversation had finally sparked enough of her interest to pull her gaze away from Xin. "Hm? Isn't it?"

Xin's luck must have been affecting me, because out of the corner of my eye I saw him and Ayano stand up to leave at the same moment Lana turned to me. I realised that this was my chance - if I could keep her distracted long enough for them to get out of sight, it'd be a chance to convince her to go do something else.

"You're not supposed to take it THAT literally. You're supposed to watch people passing by, not just watch one person!" I hoped my explanation didn't come across as suspiciously vigorous, but I was eager to hold her attention. "Where are you getting your information from?"

"Didn't I tell ya? I live on a big ship out in the sea!" She proclaimed proudly, at a volume far too loud for someone trying to stay incognito. I didn't dare to glance towards the retreating figures of Xin and Ayano in case Lana looked as well, silently hoping neither of them heard her. "I don't come into port much, so I hear about the big wide world from the chumps I keep chained up below deck... one of whom sure has some explaining to do!"

That seemed like a rather peculiar choice of house... but there was a particular part of her second sentence that caught my attention.

"Chained up? Like, uh... a prisoner?" I repeated, just to make sure I'd heard it right. She didn't reply for a moment, considering her options, but the silence was enough to confirm my suspicions.

That meant we'd managed to establish so far that Lana lived on a ship, and apparently kept prisoners. Considering her personality it wasn't quite enough to properly surprise me, but for the Ultimate Entrepreneur... that was awfully pirate-like.

"Oops... hehe, it's an old habit of mine. Pretend ya didn't hear anything, 'kay?" She shot me what would have been an amicable grin if not for those pointy, pointy teeth. "This reminds me of my Great Six Secrets to Success in Business! Rule number five: If someone breaks a promise, break their legs!"

In a rather unnerving coincidence, her words were punctuated with a sharp snap that came from behind me. I turned around in time to see a branch break off a tree on the other side of the little clearing, falling in slow motion from all the drag created by its leaves.

"Huh? A branch?" Lana seemed as surprised as I was, a sign I took with relief to mean that she hadn't somehow orchestrated it just to intimidate me. "Hey, did you hear the crack just now?"

"Yeah, the sound of the branch breaking..."

She gave me a look as if she was trying to decide if I was an idiot or not. Hey, stupid questions get stupid answers. "No, before that. I heard it get hit by something. Someone musta broken it."

... Oh, so she was actually talking about something. I quickly shook my head.

"We're near a path, right? Betcha someone's in there." Intrigued by this new mystery she set off, not even bothering to check if I was following. I hurried to catch up with her, suddenly realising that this was the same direction Xin and Ayano had gone in.

I was wracking my brain for some excuse to delay our approach, but my attention was caught by the sound of someone whooping and cheering from up ahead. Strangely, that voice didn't belong to Xin or Ayano - if I wasn't mistaken, that was Juzou who was yelling, which meant Kaede should be there too.

I followed Lana around the corner. As I'd predicted, we found Kaede and Juzou not far from us standing to one side of the path - with no Xin or Ayano to be found, thankfully - looking up at the trees around them. Curiously, Kaede was holding a modern-looking weapon that looked very much like the slingshot version of a compound bow.

"Ho, what's this? Haven't you heard of occupational health and safety?" Lana opened, despite having been nowhere near the branch when it fell. "If you'd hit me with that branch, I'd've had to sue!"

Wait a second. Slingshot... fallen branch...

"Hey... was that you, Kaede?"

"Yeah. Juzou wanted to see my talent, so I... shot down a... branch..." Kaede's face took on an expression of abject horror as the realisation of what she'd done dawned on her.

Uh oh. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. "Er... Kaede?" I ventured.

"What the hell am I doing!?" Kaede dropped the slingshot like it had burned her, covering her mouth in shock. "I came here to study, not... not shoot things off trees!"

"Hey, c'mon! It was super cool!" Juzou carried on in an unconcerned tone, but predictably it didn't have any effect.

"Shut it, Juzou! This is your fault!" She retorted, backing away from him. "I... I can't stay here any more! I need to study, or... do taxes or something!"

"Hey, come back! Kaede!" He jumped into action as Kaede fled, scooping up the slingshot and chasing after her.

"... That was..." Actually, I wasn't even sure how to describe that exchange. I felt kind of bad for Kaede, although it left me wondering how Juzou had even managed to convince her to do it in the first place.

Conveniently, however, our student IDs suddenly buzzed again. Lana pulled out hers before I had time to even reach into my pocket, her face lighting up as she read the message that was waiting for her. "Oh ho ho ho...! Well Shinji, I'm outta here!"

Tucking her ID into her breast pocket, she immediately turned tail and left before I could even ask who she had been paired with. There was only one option that was likely to get that kind of reaction out of her— I was willing to bet that she'd been matched with Xin.

Of course, I shouldn't worry about that. I had my own partner to spend time with, whoever that turned out to be. I pulled out my own ID and went into the email service, opening it up before I had time to hesitate.

* * *

 **I hope you guys are liking the students getting to know each other haha, we've got plenty more coming.**

 **PS. Happy New Year! Because the chapter won't be done by then :p**


	7. Zone 1: Sector Earth

**Arcana of the True Self - There's still a lot of stuff I want to get through so I won't do any proper free times, at least until after the first murder. There *might* be a kind of de facto free time coming up (there will be 2 places Shinji can visit), but I'll just decide where he goes myself if I can't end the chapters at a convenient place. We'll see!**

 **Sorry for taking over a month with this, but at least it's done now :P**

* * *

I didn't have anyone in mind I was hoping to be paired with, but I still found myself mildly surprised by the name staring back at me.

Asuka Azuma.

"Shinji!" I jumped as someone behind me shouted my name. Asuka had somehow managed to find me already, bowing deeply. "As ordered, I am here to obey you!"

"A-Asuka, you scared me..." She didn't reply to me, simply watching and waiting for me to give an order. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with our time together, but I needed to move around after being forced to crouch in one spot for so long. I picked a random direction and started walking. "Okay, let's go."

I heard the clink of her armour as she bowed again. "Yes, at once!"

Asuka obviously wasn't one for conversation so we walked for a while without talking. I didn't have to ask her to know that she'd be no help in deciding what to do, so I figured it would be okay if I checked in on Asahara - his time with Beatrice was long over by now, but I still wanted to make sure he was doing okay. Still, that didn't stop me from getting bored of the silence that stretched out between us, so I decided to ask her some questions while I had the opportunity.

"Hey, Asuka. Can you tell me about yourself?" I asked, figuring it was a good place to start.

"I am Asuka Azuma, the Ultimate Servant! My height is 177 cm, and my weight is—"

"Uh, never mind." I quickly cut her off, before she could start listing measurements that I'd never remember. I'd have to be more specific than that. "Tell me about how you became the Ultimate Servant instead."

"My parents sent me to an institution for training when I was 5 years old. The training I received perfectly prepared me for a life of service!" Asuka replied, her strong voice easily audible even from behind me. She said no more, making me realise I was going to have to drive the conversation.

"What kind of training?" I prompted. ... Is this what putting voice commands into a computer is like?

"Obedience training, as per the curriculum I was taught!"

"Obedience training...!?" Incredulous, I stopped in my tracks and turned to face her. She met my widened eyes with a blank expression.

"Yes!" Of course, she paid no heed to my shock. The very idea of what she was saying was unbelievable, but I wasn't sure if she was even capable of lying or cracking jokes.

In a way, it made sense— even among the Ultimate students, she stood out from us as a person unusually dedicated to her talent. For Asuka, it went beyond something she enjoyed or was good at... it was more like a way of life that she had dedicated her body and soul to.

Rather unnervingly, it also raised some questions. If she had really learned her ability to serve from an institution, then her extremely servile nature was most likely something that had been taught to her. Her parents couldn't have deliberately sent her there, right...? My feelings must have been showing on my face, because for the first time Asuka spoke to me without prompting.

"Shinji, I request permission to speak!" Well, that probably didn't count as speaking her mind, but it was still strange to hear her speak of her own volition.

"Of course. What is it?" I replied.

"Please don't worry on my behalf. I am a servant, and a true servant has no opinion." Her reply was concise and obviously rehearsed, but she spoke in a voice brimming with conviction.

It didn't really sit comfortably with me, but if she truly believed what she was saying I didn't have any other choice but to accept it.

Suddenly, a girl's voice floated down to me. "I see you asked about that too. It's rather concerning, but unfortunately there is not much we can do about it."

That voice sounded like it belonged to Ayano. No one was around but I remembered to try looking up this time, spotting her and Toranosuke on the observation deck above me.

"Ayano... you were up there the whole time?" I asked, sparing a glance at Toranosuke. He had yet to even acknowledge our existence, as he was busy sweeping over the gardens with a pair of binoculars he was holding.

"Yes, I suppose so. I thought it would be awfully rude to interrupt." She replied apologetically.

Well, at least I could take comfort in knowing I wasn't the only one who was worried about it. I waved off her apology, changing the subject. "What are you two doing up there?"

"Oh, I was just people watching. Xin and Lana are eating together in the cafe, and they seem to be getting along quite well." Ayano replied, her cheerfulness showing through her polite tone. I noticed she was holding binoculars of her own as well - I couldn't help smiling a little as it seemed the tables had turned.

"Hey. You were looking for Masanori, right?" Toranosuke nudged her, pointing somewhere over my head. "He's over there."

Ayano smiled, following his outstretched finger through her own binoculars. "Oh yes, I see him. Thank you very much, Toranosuke."

"You're in on this too, Toranosuke? I didn't realise you enjoyed that kind of thing." People watching didn't seem like his cup of tea, but I was also surprised he was actively helping out Ayano - he was obviously disinterested in the whole speed dating thing, but he actually seemed content to be spending time with her. They were getting along surprisingly well, all things considered.

Toranosuke narrowed his eyes, silently admonishing me for passing judgement on him. Which I kind of was, to be fair. "What? Not like there's anything else to do here."

Of course, I chuckled to myself at his expense anyway. However, I was acutely aware time was ticking before we'd change partners again so I quickly excused myself in order to get moving again.

I continued my search with Asuka in tow, but it quickly became apparent that I really should have gathered some kind of intel; we came across Yuuta trying to dissuade Beatrice from kidnapping one of the animals from the enclosures, and Riley locked in an unnecessarily aggressive arm wrestling match with Juzou, but there was no sign of the Ultimate Toymaker no matter where I looked. In the end I had to give up, as our IDs buzzed once again.

"Shinji, I have been ordered to spend time with Mio. Please, excuse me!" Asuka announced. She bowed, dashing off into the gardens as I checked the person I had been assigned to spend time with next: Nichira Matsubaki.

* * *

"Listen up, pretty boy. Let's get one thing clear - I don't want to get psychoanalysed. No touchy-feely questions, alright?" Nichira poked me in the chest accusingly, eyes narrowed. "Especially about the lollipops. I just like the taste, so don't give me some 'oral fixation' crap."

"Uh... hello to you too, Nichira." I greeted. After Asuka left, Flower-chan had appeared to helpfully inform me Nichira was waiting at the cafe, so I made my way over only to be greeted with Nichira barging into my personal space bubble.

"Oh. Yeah, that too." She retreated a couple of steps back and stuck a lollipop in her mouth, talking around it. "Now that's cleared up, let's get going."

We immediately set off on a trip to the animal enclosures. According to Nichira someone had started cooking which made sitting in the cafe too noisy, so instead we ended up spending some time playing with the animals and making jokes about eating the uncooperative ones. It got boring after a while though, so we ended up wandering over to the fountain clearing.

Nichira sat down next to me on the fountain's rim, carefully tucking her coat under her legs so it wouldn't get wet. Now, how was I going to get to know her if she was going to scold me for asking questions? "So... what questions am I allowed to ask you?" I opened tentatively.

Nichira tutted disapprovingly. "Is that all you know how to do? Just tell me about yourself or something."

"Ah... I guess I can do that," I said, trying to wrack my brains for any interesting stories I had. I quickly came up blank, though - I was so used to listening to other people's stories I didn't really have any of my own to speak of. "I don't think there's much to say... I had a pretty ordinary childhood."

"Well, that's boring." She said bluntly. "No life changing events that made you decide to become a therapist?"

I shrugged. "Nothing that I can think of. I guess I just care too much about other people... or so I'm told."

"So you found your calling then, huh?" Nichira frowned as she spoke. Was it just me or did she sound a little irritated? "Well, good for you. Not all of us are that lucky, you know."

"What, you don't like being a researcher?"

"Half and half. I do enjoy academic stuff, but I could have done without good ol' mummy and daddy shoving it down my throat." Realising what she had just said, she folded her arms and scowled at me. "Damn it. What did I tell you about the touchy-feely questions?"

"Hey, that was you." I replied, putting my hands up defensively.

"Ugh, forget it... Let's change the subject. C'mon." Nichira suddenly stood up, leading me far enough into one of the paths leading out of the clearing so that we were hidden from sight. She crouched down and signalled for me to join her, so I sighed to myself and crouched as well. "Got any dirt on anyone? I can make it worth your while."

"... Isn't it a bit early to be gossiping, Nichira?" I asked, frowning at her.

"Research, bucko. Research." She corrected me in a flippant tone. "Anyway, if you find out any— wait, someone's coming."

We both stopped to listen. There was a male voice from nearby, and as I listened it quickly became discernible. "—use a challenge! I'll prove it to you!"

"That's Masanori." Nichira muttered to herself. She tilted her head towards the source of his voice, signalling me to stay where I was. "Don't move. I'm going to check it out."

"So, is people watching a hobby around here or something?" I asked aloud as she shuffled forwards to get a better look. First Lana, then Ayano and Toranosuke, and now Nichira. I was starting to think this was an actual selection criteria.

"You really think I have nothing better to do? Look who he's with." She brushed off my commentary, pointing at the short, pink-clad girl walking across the clearing with Masanori: Beatrice.

They were both standing close to the fountain, at the base of a wall of rock made with white stones cobbled together by light grey cement. Masanori was looking expectantly at Beatrice, who was holding what looked like a stopwatch. It took me a moment, but I realised that he was probably about to climb it - I hadn't paid much attention to it the first time I had been there but the wall actually looked surprisingly suited to climbing, as there were enough small rocks jutting out to provide plenty of handholds.

"Ihihi! Move it, Masanori! You have 30 seconds!" She hollered, signalling for him to start moving. He scaled the wall with ease, reaching the top with his long limbs well within the time limit. His climb took him all the way up to the observation deck, where he sat on the railing and flashed Beatrice a thumbs up.

"Gyahaha, easy! C'mon, give me a bigger challenge than that!" He laughed, gesturing for her to back out of the way so he could drop back down to the ground.

She grinned, putting her hands on her hips. "Fine, then I'll ramp up the difficulty! Climb up with one arm, one leg, and me on your shoulders!"

"Hah, no problem! Should I fireman carry you?"

"Ihihi, no way! I want a shoulder ride!" As she talked Masanori let himself drop from the railing, hitting the ground with a roll and dusting himself off. "Once you get up, you have 60 seconds to get to the cafe! We have to check on Asuka's progress!"

"Right, let's do it! Hop on!" Masanori bent down on one knee and bowed his head, motioning for her to climb up his shoulders. It was nice to see them having fun— if anyone was going to clash with Masanori I'd figured it would be Beatrice, but I was actually kind of shocked at how well the two of them were getting along.

Our impromptu spying session over, we both stood up again. "Huh, if Masanori and Beatrice are together..." Nichira muttered from next to me.

It didn't take long for me to put two and two together. "Don't tell me... this isn't actually speed dating?"

"So that idiot flower wasn't kidding?" She concluded reluctantly, but it didn't take long for her to snap her fingers in realisation. "No, I take that back. I bet she just threw in some dummy pairs to try and fool us."

"I wasn't kidding! It's really not speed dating!" Flower-chan insisted, suddenly appearing from behind us. Honestly, at this point her persistence was actually kind of impressive. "Um, I mean... Hello, both of you! Did you enjoy your orientation?"

Nichira frowned at our teacher's sudden appearance. "You've got nerve, Flower-chan. I didn't come to Hope's Peak for speed dating."

"Ah, you're so mean to your teacher..." She visibly wilted under Nichira's disapproving gaze, slumping forwards in her pot.

"Don't you know I'm only mean to people I like?" Nichira replied casually, pulling her now-finished lollipop out of her mouth and bending the stick with her fingers. "But you know, I had my fun. Maybe you're not so bad."

"Oh, thank you! It makes me happy that—" Flower-chan started, but she hesitated as she began to consider Nichira's words. "W-wait... but if you're nice, does that mean you don't like me? But if you think I'm not so bad, then doesn't that mean..."

"I think that was too much for her..." I noted dryly, but Nichira was clearly enjoying her confusion.

"A-anyway... Mio, Masanori, Beatrice, and Asuka are preparing dinner for everyone, so please come to the cafe soon!" Flower-chan changed the subject, moving on to what she had presumably appeared to tell us. "I've also added a rulebook to your student ID, so please make sure you read it. I'm sure no one will cause trouble, but following the rules will ensure our school life is fun for everyone!"

"Dinner already...? I guess we've been at this for a while." Nichira wondered aloud as Flower-chan disappeared as quickly as she had come. "Well, I'm out of here. See you later, Shinji."

I waved goodbye to Nichira. I didn't know what she was planning, but for a lack of anything else to do I figured I may as well head to the cafe.

After a quick check of the map to get my bearings I leisurely headed towards the cafe, deciding to take a look at the rules Flower-chan had just told us about while I walked. It wasn't difficult to find, as another tab had been added to the menu clearly labelled 'RULES'. Inside was a series of pages you could scroll through, each with a sentence or two of text in large font.

* * *

 _Flower-chan's Rules + Information_

* * *

 _ **#1.** Rule breaking will incur a punishment, so please obey the rules!_

 _ **#2.** Malicious destruction of property is forbidden. Please be nice to your fellow students!_

 _ **#3.** Let's keep Sector Earth clean! Littering is forbidden._

 _ **#4.** To ensure water purity, the fountain in the central clearing is off limits. Please do not touch!_

 _ **#5.** Night time occurs between 10 pm and 7 am. During this period, the cafe is locked and the observation deck elevator will not run. However, there is no curfew, so you may move around Sector Earth whenever you wish! _

* * *

At a glance the rules seemed fairly basic. There wasn't even a curfew, so it sounded like we had pretty much free reign here.

I was slowly getting acclimatised to all the strange happenings, but it still bothered me. The fifth rule pretty much said outright that we'd be staying here during the night... but as far as I was aware, Hope's Peak wasn't a boarding school. I tried to remember what had been written on the invitation to come here, but I was drawing a complete—

"Oh, Shinji! How was your speed dating?" I had entered the cafe while on autopilot but Mio's cheerful voice brought me back to the present. As my gaze flickered from the floor to her friendly smile, my mouth turned up into a smile of its own accord.

"Yeah, pretty good," I replied. Just as Flower-chan had said, Masanori was also here; he waved to me from over by the counter, and I thought I glimpsed Beatrice disappearing into the corridor that lead to the kitchen. I was about to continue, but all thoughts momentarily fell out of my head when I caught sight of the food.

Some of the tables had been pushed together, forming a makeshift banquet table with just enough space to squeeze 16 people around the generous plates of food piled into the centre. Whoever had cooked all this had really outdone themselves - familiar foods and exotic dishes were heaped onto every inch of the table, assaulting my senses with a mix of colours and smells. I might not have been able to name a lot of the food, but I knew meat when I saw it. And it was everywhere.

"Er... are we going to eat all of this?" I asked, awed. The table was already stacked with food, and judging by the sounds coming from the kitchen there was still more coming. "I mean, I don't mind meat, but a zoo somewhere probably died for this."

"I think Masanori got a bit carried away..." Mio agreed, laughing nervously. "Good thing I was here for the ordering, or I wouldn't have anything to eat."

Right, Mio was a vegetarian. I curiously looked over the food again to see if I could find any non meat dishes, but they must have been lost somewhere in the meat-apocalypse.

I heard the cafe door open from behind me, and I turned to see Toranosuke walk in.

"Oh, Toranosuke, you're here." She greeted him brightly. "You know... no offence, but I penned you as more of an 'eats by himself' kind of person."

He shrugged. "Food's good. I can tolerate you if I really have to."

"Hey Tora, over here! Come check out the menu!" Masanori yelled from the other end of the room, enthusiastically waving him over.

"Do you have to call me that...?" He made a face at Masanori's new nickname for him, but made his way over regardless.

"Ahaha, sounds like they're getting along." Mio grinned, watching Toranosuke go. "Anyway, let's find a seat! Asuka should be finishing up any minute now."

We sat down together, chatting while the rest of our class filed in and Asuka brought out the remaining food. One of the two prime topics of conversation was of course the speed dating, as everyone enthusiastically complained about the audacity of Flower-chan forcing us into it. In a way, it was funny— even the people who weren't on board with the speed dating were bonding over their mutual hatred for it. If I didn't know any better, I'd have said that was her plan from the start.

The other one was the food - it turned out to be the sole work of Asuka, who had insisted on doing everything except for selecting the menu by herself. It was no surprise that the Ultimate Servant would be skilled at cooking, but Asuka must have been bordering on Ultimate Chef level— it was amazing! Between the delicious food and the rowdy atmosphere I found myself spacing out, content to simply listen to the lively conversation.

"Masanori... what plate is that now?" Genichi asked, eyeing up the Ultimate Firefighter's plate. "For 16 people... we're eating like there's 50 of us."

"Heh, I haven't been keeping count." Masanori replied through a mouthful of food, stuffing the last of the steak into his mouth and looking around for a new dish. "I gotta have everything though, it's all so good!"

"Yeah, it's really delicious... but even so..." Mio said, gaping at how much food he was going through. "Are you even human!? It's like you're eating your body weight in food!"

"So that's how much you need for those muscles? I can do that!" Juzou seemed to be taking notes, carefully watching Masanori pile food onto his plate. "I'm getting fired up now! I'll match you, just you watch!"

Ayano put down her fork, cradling her cheek with her palm. "Hm? Oh my, it suddenly feels as if the atmosphere just became competitive..."

Masanori laughed. "This isn't a competition, this is a feast! Gyahaha, no wonder you guys are all so skinny!

"Hey, I had a normal amount of food! You're the one eating like a garbage disposal unit!" Kaede cut in indignantly.

"That's the way it should be! I saw how hard Asuka worked on cooking all this, so I'm going to enjoy as much as I can!"

"Yes! It makes me happy to see you are enjoying it!" Asuka shouted, standing up from her seat to bow. I didn't doubt her sincerity, but it probably would have been more convincing if she didn't say it with such a stony face.

* * *

In the end, we managed to demolish a surprisingly high amount of the food that had been prepared. Asuka steadfastly insisted on cleaning up on her own while simultaneously fending off everyone's praise ("I can handle this myself! Please do not doubt my abilities as a servant!") so the rest of us lounged around in the cafe, still talking and laughing. However, it wasn't long until Kaede - who had fallen silent since about halfway through dinner - stood up to leave.

"Eh, Kaede? Leaving so early?" Riley asked her.

"I like to sleep early. ... And there's something I want to check." Kaede was clearly distracted as she replied, looking out somewhere into the now dark gardens. "Good night, everyone."

We bid her goodnight as Kaede stepped out of the cafe and slid the door shut behind her. She was obviously preoccupied with something... I hoped everything was okay.

"Hmm, she seems worried. I wonder if she's alright..." Genichi echoed my thoughts as he watched her shadow disappear into the night.

"It's probably nothing. I asked Juzou, and he said it's normal for girls to get weird every period." Xin said matter-of-factly. "... Wait, I don't think that was right. Was it once a month instead...? Honestly, I didn't really get it."

...

Note-to-self: Keep Juzou away from Xin.

"Uh... I don't think it's that, Xin," Mio said gently, sending Juzou a questioning look.

"Hey, he asked!" He hastily defended himself, raising his hands in front of him as if physically warding off her judgement.

"I've decided! I'll go find her!" Masanori volunteered, enthusiastically jumping out of his chair. "I need some exercise anyway, or I'll end up getting fat."

He left with one final shout of thanks to Asuka, setting off at a brisk jog. Mio, Toranosuke, Asahara, and Nichira followed his lead and excused themselves, but most of us stuck around to keep talking until we heard Flower-chan's voice addressing us through a speaker in the far corner.

* * *

 _"Good evening, everybody! It's now 10 o' clock, which means night time has begun!"_

 _"It's such a beautiful night... can you see the stars, everyone?"_

 _"Well, good night! Please enjoy dreams that are overflowing with love!"_

* * *

I was honestly surprised to hear it was 10 o'clock already— time had really flown while we were talking. Still, I took it as a cue to take my leave, waving goodbye to a chorus of 'goodnight's and heading back to my room. I switched on the TV as soon as I entered, flicking to some random late night show just to have some white noise in the background.

Now I was back here I took the opportunity to look around properly, but there wasn't much I had missed in my initial sweep around the room - I learned there was a wardrobe hidden in the wall next to the TV and the bathroom contained a shower and a toilet, but there wasn't anything particularly out of the ordinary.

I shrugged off my jacket and shoes, realising I still had Xin's orb in my pocket as I was about to sit on the bed. I pulled it out, taking a moment to look at how the expertly cut gems glittered under the overhead light.

What was I going to do with this? It had no real use other than looking pretty, and I never really understood what you were supposed to do with these things. In the end I decided to just put it on my nightstand. It was clearly intended to be held or put in a display case, but I eventually managed to put it into a position where it wouldn't roll off the edge.

Today had been a strange day, I concluded. There were still a lot of questions I wanted answers to, but... I think I was actually glad it turned out this way. Sector Earth was a really amazing place, it had been fun, and I was looking forward to spending more time with everyone. I smiled to myself as I turned my focus to the news program, watching it until I was bored enough to switch it off and go to sleep.

* * *

 **Looking back the screentime between characters ended up a bit uneven... which isn't great, but I suppose there's still plenty of time for everyone's time in the spotlight :P**

 **But anyway, we're at the end of day one! This story contains murder, I promise.**


	8. Zone 1: Zero Escape

**Sorry about the slow update, but I ended up having to rewrite a fairly big portion of this chapter during editing.**

* * *

 _"Good morning, everybody! Aaah, it's a fresh new day today!"_

 _"Let's do our best to enjoy days filled with love!"_

* * *

Flower-chan's voice reverberated around the room, jolting me into consciousness. I blearily rubbed my eyes and sat up. That's right... the whole purpose of Sector Earth was supposedly something love-related, so it wasn't much of a surprise to hear Flower-chan pushing the theme even in her announcements.

It took me a little while to wake up properly, but I eventually made it out of my room and headed straight for the cafe. The tables from yesterday had been moved back to their original positions, and everyone was scattered about the room in groups of twos and threes eating food prepared courtesy of Asuka. I drew up a chair across from Mio, and we chatted over our meals while enjoying the warm morning sun filtering in.

A few people had finished even before all of the latecomers trickled in, but the consensus seemed to be that we would all wait here to see if Flower-chan had something in store for us. However, once we were all gathered with still no signs of our teacher, Kaede stood up and cleared her throat to draw everyone's attention.

"Listen. Has anyone seen an exit?"

"An exit?" Toranosuke muttered to himself, while across from him Ayano shook her head. Come to think of it I hadn't seen one either, but then again the notion of looking for a way out hadn't even crossed my mind until now.

"You haven't, right?" Kaede asked, pulling at her sleeves anxiously. Her question was rhetorical, but she was practically begging for someone to prove her wrong. "I was looking all over yesterday, but I can't find a way out...!"

"That's because... there isn't one!" A voice suddenly interrupted our conversation. It was an artificially altered or generated voice much like Flower-chan, only this one sounded less feminine. The next thing I knew there was a plush bear about Flower-chan's size standing on Riley and Xin's table, causing the former to yelp and fall out of her chair in shock. The best way I could describe it was a hybrid of two different designs stitched together down the middle; one half was coloured an innocent white, while the other was pure black complete with an ominous looking red eye.

"Wh... what do you mean there isn't one!?" Kaede's eyes widened in horror, totally ignoring the fact that this new information was coming out of a stuffed bear.

"Huh? Why's that such a big shocker?" Lana stopped playing around with her fork and looked up, confusion written all over her face. "We're underground, silly! We're not gonna find a door outta here without some serious excavation."

Woah, wait a sec.

"Hold on... we're underground?" I asked. Where did _that_ come from, and why was she saying it like it was the most obvious thing in the world?

"Sure! I thought everyone knew that," She replied cheerfully, looking around at our blank faces. A grin spread across her face as she realised she had been the only one in on it. "O-ho-ho... well, call it my sailor's intuition. I can tell when I'm below sea level."

"Gah, it's too early for twists like this! Where'd this bear come from, anyway!?" Juzou yelled, clutching his head. "Why is everything talkin'... it's giving me a headache..."

"It's probably Flower-chan's friend," Nichira said matter-of-factly. "It makes more sense than a moving and talking flower, if you ask me. At least bears actually have legs."

"That's what I thought, too!" Mio agreed, looking happy someone else shared her line of thinking. "I mean, they're both talking... toy... things."

"Upupu, I'm not any ordinary bear - I'm your saviour! Call me Monokuma!" The bear introduced himself enthusiastically, putting his paws on his hips. "Aah, isn't this place horrid? But don't despair, I'm here to help everyone escape!"

"Escape...? Do you know a way out of here!?" Kaede was totally eating up Monokuma's words, walking up to him almost reverently. Though from the look on her face, I was half expecting her to grab him and start shaking him until answers fell out.

"Of course! Would I lie to—"

"Kyaaa! YOU!" From somewhere out of my line of vision, I heard a yell and... an explosion? Flower-chan suddenly flew into my line of vision and full on body slammed Monokuma, knocking him off his stumpy feet and sending them both tumbling through the cafe doors.

I stared mutely at the situation unfolding in front of me. I'd seen my share of weird things on the internet, but I never imagined I'd see a sunflower holding a black-and-white toy bear in a chokehold, much less in real life.

"Gyaaa! Get off me, you bastard!" Monokuma yelled, his paws flailing at the leaf twisted around his neck.

"Kinda early for a fight, isn't it?" Riley asked. It clearly didn't bother her that much though, as she was craning her neck to try and watch them wrestle from a better angle. "Well, that's fine with me! Who should we bet on!?"

"Grr, I can't believe this...! My speech!" Managing to wriggle free before any betting could take place, the bear shoved Flower-chan away from him and dusted himself off. This proved an effective tactic against the flower, who struggled to right herself due to not having any legs. "Looks like it's time... to escape!"

"Hey, wait—!" Kaede called after him. At this point I wouldn't have been surprised to see a round two, but Monokuma instead abruptly turned tail and fled.

"And don't come back!" Flower-chan shouted after him, punching at the air aggressively. "Haah... haah... why is _he_ here...!?"

"... Flower-chan, what was that?" Yuuta asked, turning in his seat to face her.

She surely must have seen that question coming, but she flinched as if she had been physically shocked. Her anger melted away in an instant, replaced by a fumbling panic as she frantically tried to wave off his question. "U... um, it was nothing! It was just for show! Please forget you saw anything!"

"Are you sure you're okay?" In a testament to how badly she was handling herself, even Xin was picking up on her nervousness. "You seem tense all of a sudden."

"D-don't worry, everything is fine! Um... Please continue with the plan I've set out for you all!" She hastily produced a sheet of paper and shoved it at the closest person to her - Genichi. "Here! Please divide into groups and complete the activities!"

He took it without complaint and read out what had been written down, "It says... we're supposed to split into two groups to do activities. Feeding the animals, and creating flower displays at the greenhouse."

"Flower displays!? That's so boring!" Beatrice scoffed, rising out of her seat. "Hey, I'm going to do something actually interesting!"

"You don't like my ideas? W-well, if you think there's something else that would be a good bonding activity..." Flower-chan sounded a bit disheartened, but she reluctantly agreed. "As long as you're in a group, it should be fine—"

"Can it! Asuka, Asahara! You're with me!"

"Yes!" Asuka shouted back, coming out from behind the counter.

"Eh? Me...?" Asahara looked up in surprise at hearing his name. "B... but—"

"Ihihi! You don't get a say in the matter!" Beatrice promptly overrode him, already heading towards the cafe doors. "Asuka, take him with us!"

She swiftly bowed, turning on a cowering Asahara. "I understand! Asahara, prepare yourself!"

"Wait, nooooooo...! I haven't finished my breakfast!" Of course, Asuka was unsympathetic to his protests, pulling him clean out of his chair and dragging him away.

Masanori had been too busy stuffing his face to contribute to the conversation, but he finally stopped eating to watch them go. "Do... do ya think someone should save Asahara?"

"Good luck prising him out of Beatrice's fingers." Genichi shrugged. "He'll be fine... probably."

"Hey, where'd Flower-chan go?" Mio suddenly asked. I looked around, but it seemed Flower-chan had just left us to our own devices. "Guess she's leaving it to us. Let's start splitting up, shall we?"

* * *

We had an odd number thanks to the Beatrice-led exodus, but we managed to split relatively evenly; I went to the greenhouse with Ayano, Riley, Lana, Xin, and Yuuta, while everyone else headed to the animal enclosures.

Some space had been cleared in the centre of the greenhouse to make way for a huge waist-high rectangular planting box, complete with a smaller second tier in the center and made out of white limestone much like the ones out in the Sector. It seemed we were supposed to fill it with the rows of flowers that had been neatly lined up on the floor in plastic pots.

With so much space to fill in, the reasonable thing to do would have been to split up into teams and work at it from multiple angles, but we had no time for things like 'common sense' and immediately started working on our own little sections while making idle chatter. All of the blooms looked beautiful individually, so we couldn't go wrong... right?

"Hey Shinji, purple or blue?" Lana suddenly asked me about fifteen minutes in, shoving two flowers into my face far more enthusiastically than she needed to; one shrub-like plant covered in tiny light blue blooms, and one standing at a slight bend, its sole flower showing off vibrant purple petals.

"Uh... purple."

"Good, good. That's what I thought too." She nodded in approval... and promptly set it aside, pulling the blue one out of its pot instead. Naturally, I sent her a questioning look.

"Lana? That's the blue one."

"Of course it is! I'm keepin' the good one for my room!" She replied, and I rolled my eyes as she placed the blue flower into the hole she'd dug for it. _Of course_ Lana would be stealing things. Patting it into the soil, she picked up her purple flower again and turned it around in her hands. "Hm... I've never kept a flower before. What d'you feed it?"

I could see the telltale specks of fertiliser in the dirt at a glance, but by the sounds of it Lana didn't know what that was. "There's already food in the soil, so you'd only need to water it every couple of days... I think."

"That's all? Well then, that's a cinch compared to a prisoner!" She said happily, and I might have laughed if I didn't suspect she was actually serious.

"Wait, don't take that purple one! I think Ayano might need it. Can I?" Xin suddenly intervened, clasping the pot by the rim just as Lana was about to make off with her prize and giving her a pleading look. Presumably wanting to stay in his good books, she reluctantly let him take it over to Ayano. "Here, how about this one?"

Ayano's face lit up into a smile as he presented the violet flower to her. "It's perfect! But I can't just get rid of these two. Oh, what should I do...!?" I had been too busy planting flowers to notice, but Ayano had actually gotten pretty absorbed in her work; by the looks of it she was pouring a perhaps unnecessary amount of emotional energy into trying to decide between two plants with very similar shades. "No, I can't choose between them."

"Oh, I know. Why don't you use all of them?"

"Ah... yes, that's it! I'll fuse them together!" Ayano exclaimed. I had to wonder what exactly she meant by that, because I was getting mad scientist vibes from her all of a sudden.

"You can fuse them? That's amazing. I didn't know you could mix and match flowers like that." Xin was equally clueless but went along with it anyway, watching with interest as Ayano started to pull the flowers out of their pots.

Wait, can they survive being pulled apart like that? "Uh, I don't think they're supposed to— wait, Ayano!"

"... Oh dear. What am I doing?" Thankfully, my voice seemed to bring her to her senses before she had managed to inflict any lasting damage. She coughed, quickly regaining her composure and picking the flower Xin had given her. "I'll just use this one... I seem to have gotten a little overexcited. Thank you for your help, Xin."

"No, pull it by the—" Meanwhile on the other side, Yuuta was watching Riley struggle to pull a delicate-looking red flower out of its pot. She seemed to be having quite a lot of trouble getting it out, and her newest attempt only resulted in stripping even more leaves off the already damaged flower. "Jeez... you're really hopeless at this, aren't you?"

"Ahaha... my bad. Here, you try it." Riley apologised, handing the flower to the taller man. She slapped his back encouragingly as he buried his hands into the soil to grab it by the roots. "Wow! You're really good at this, Yuuta. Have you ever considered becoming a gardener?"

"You're joking, right?" Yuuta replied sceptically, and just to prove his point there was a sharp snapping sound after he shoved his hand in a little too enthusiastically. "Shit... I think I cracked the pot."

"Don't worry, you got it! Thanks a bunch!" She said merrily, taking the dislodged flower off his hands and planting it in a hole that I realised was almost connected to where I was working. This didn't escape Riley's notice either, and it was apparently enough to fire up her competitive instincts. She grinned at me from across the box. "Looks like we're running out of space! Let's race Shinji, I bet I can plant more than you!"

"Wha... Riley, get back here!"

* * *

"Hello, everyone! Are you finished?" Flower-chan greeted, appearing just as we had finished planting the last of the flowers. I'd had my doubts - and the display was really just a mess of bright colours and oddly shaped blooms - but the way it seemed to glow under the bright light streaming in from above made it look actually pretty decent. "That was your activity for the day, so you have some free time now! You can even join your classmates and help with their activity!"

Unlike how chatty she had been yesterday she immediately disappeared again, so we decided to get out of the greenhouse before discussing our plans.

"I'm going to head to the animal enclosures." Yuuta announced once we were out into the sector. "I... I want to see the animals."

"Hm, that sounds fun. I want to go too." Xin volunteered, and Riley and Lana enthusiastically followed suit.

That left me and Ayano, who spoke up before I could with a thoughtful expression. "Hmm... what are you going to do, Shinji?"

"Actually, I was thinking of looking for Beatrice." I admitted. Visiting the animal enclosures was a tempting prospect, but the urge to check on Asahara won out— the fact I hadn't managed to find him yesterday was still nagging at me, and this morning he'd been dragged off by Beatrice. Again.

"I assume you want to find out what she has been doing?" She probed, and I nodded. "To tell the truth, I have been wondering about that as well. Do you mind terribly if I come with you?"

"Sure." I said with a smile, glad at the prospect of company. Now that was decided, all we had to do was find them...

We tried the cafe first, but it contained no trace of the trio we were searching for. I wasn't sure where else to look but luckily Ayano had the wisdom to suggest we check our assigned rooms. Sure enough, when we checked the girls' side we found the door to Asuka's room ajar.

"Hello?" I called out, cautiously poking my head through the door. As I suppose you'd expect, the layout was pretty much identical to my own room - Beatrice was lying on the bed writing what looked like calculations on a large sheet of paper laid out in front of her, while Asuka and Asahara had moved the former's nightstand out into the middle of the room and were huddled around it.

"What do you want? You're interrupting me!" Beatrice yelled back, looking up from her work long enough to give me an expectant stare.

"We just came by to say hello," I replied diplomatically. "Are you making something?"

"Ihihi, are you blown away by my talents? I'm building a flamethrower!" She declared gleefully. "I call it the Onizuka Ultradeath Infernocannon!"

"... You're building a flamethrower in a place filled with plants?" I had to admit, it was very impressive that she could just sit down and create a flamethrower design on a whim. Still... I could ignore the ludicrous name, but for the Ultimate Genius she sure didn't seem to have stellar decision-making skills. I could only hope this wouldn't somehow come back to haunt us later.

"What, you think I'd be stupid enough to burn this place down?" Beatrice replied dismissively, undeterred by my obvious scepticism. "I'm the Ultimate Genius, I don't need safety standards!"

"And are you helping her out, Asahara?" Ayano addressed the Ultimate Toymaker from beside me, eyeing the screwdriver he was toying with. He nodded quickly.

"We've started construction, but I can't do anything more until Beatrice finishes her calculations..." Asahara explained. After a pause, he started speaking again while chewing on his glove.

"I want to eat, but I can't do it around my work, or I might get crumbs into the mechanisms... what if the crumbs make it explode, and it kills someone?" He was talking more to himself than us, apparently trying to talk himself out of going to find food. "Uuu... but I can feel malnutrition setting in..."

"Hm... perhaps you could try and distract yourself?" Ayano suggested. "Why not talk to Asuka?"

"Ugh... but she's scary..."

"Just try talking to her. She's not that bad." I coaxed. To be fair, it _was_ hard to deny Asuka was a bit intimidating.

"A... Alright." To my mild surprise he actually took my advice, nervously turning to face her. "Um... Excuse me, Asuka..."

"Excuse you for what? What did you do wrong?" Asuka demanded, immediately fixating her burning gaze on Asahara.

Uh oh. She took what he said too literally...

"E-eh? But... I didn't..." Asahara stumbled over his words, not expecting the sudden accusation.

"I can't excuse you if there's nothing to be excused! Surely there's something?!"

"Well... I don't..." He trailed off, it didn't take long for him to come up with something. "Ah! Um, I think I forgot to push my chair in at the cafe..."

I suppose that was true, even if it wasn't his fault. Asuka did drag him off against his will, after all.

"... Is that your definition of a bad thing, Asahara?" Ayano asked, sounding more confused than anything.

"It's dangerous...! What if somebody trips over it and hurts themselves? What if they're carrying a knife, and then—! Oh, how horrible...!"

"As if that's going to happen!" I interjected, but he was already going off on a tangent.

"No, you don't understand! What if they're carrying a candle, and the chairs catch fire?! Th... Then, this whole place is going to...! I... I have to go fix it—!"

"But... why would anyone be carrying a candle?" While Ayano was busy pondering the specifics of the scenario, Asahara bolted out of his seat and made a break for the door.

"Hey— Asahara! Get back here!" I wasn't about to let him get away that easily, of course, and I managed to grab hold of his arm before he could escape.

"B-but, my chair..." He protested weakly, but we both knew I wasn't letting him go anywhere. Defeated, he slunk back to his seat. "Ugh... I'm sorry..."

Once he was seated again, Asuka began to speak. "I understand the situation. Asahara, I am capable of excusing you as long as someone has not died as a direct result of it!"

Asahara's eyes widened with terror. "S, s, someone's gonna die because of it!?"

"That's correct! To satisfy that condition, we must check for corpses immediately! Please order me to do so!"

"N, noooooo! I don't wanna kill someone!" He wailed, clutching his head. At this rate he was going to have a breakdown.

"Relax, Asahara. No one's dead," I said firmly, attempting to fix the situation as best I could. "And no, Asuka. That's stupid. Really stupid."

Of course, Beatrice chose that exact moment to butt in. "It's not stupid! It's a case of Schrödinger's corpse!"

"That's Schrödinger's cat, not corpse! And what does that have to do with anything?"

"How about you use your brain for once?" She sniped, speaking with barely restrained glee. "If we haven't seen a corpse, we have to consider everyone to be alive and dead at the same time! Therefore, everyone is potentially dead, and possibly as a result of Asahara's negligence!"

"W... What kind of explanation is that!?" Her explanation made no sense whatsoever, yet it felt like she had managed to spout a bunch of nonsense and still come out on top.

Ah, forget it. The sooner we moved on from this train wreck of a conversation, the better.

* * *

After finally managing to calm Asahara down, Ayano and I left the three of them to their project and spent the rest of the afternoon socialising with the rest of the class. Dinner came and went— we mutually agreed the lavish meal we had the day before was way too much to ask of Asuka again, so we ended up settling for simpler food after she vigorously rejected all offers of help again. As we ate it was clear that seeds of unrest had been sown, now that the novelty of Sector Earth was starting to wear off. We were all full of questions about our situation and the true nature of this place; more specifically, the prime question was whether or not a way out existed as Monokuma had claimed.

"Me and Masanori spoke to Flower-chan earlier, but she ran away when I asked if there's really no exit." Riley said, absently pushing her food around her plate. "That's really suspicious, isn't it?"

"I have to admit, this is getting a bit weird..." Mio agreed, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the table. "There must be a way to get out somewhere, right? I mean, we had to be moved in here in the first place."

"Maybe they used a lift? I bet the one that goes to the observation deck could carry all of us." Masanori offered, but quickly thought better of it. "Wait... would that work? I guess it can only go up one floor..."

"You guys worry too much... the orientation is gonna end sometime, right? Just enjoy it while it's here!" Of course, not everyone was concerned by the way our situation was unfolding— Juzou was obviously bored by the conversation, lounging back in his chair. "C'mon! There are worse places to get trapped!"

"Suit yourself, but I think this warrants investigation," Genichi immediately disagreed, drawing an eye roll from the silver-haired student. He turned to Kaede, who was in the seat next to him. "Would you like to come with me and look around again tomorrow? I'd like to search this place myself."

"Ah... yes, I'd like that," Kaede seemed surprised by the sudden offer, but accepted it happily. Other people quickly started to volunteer as well, and soon enough most of us had decided to band together tomorrow and give Sector Earth a thorough investigation.

* * *

Eventually night time rolled around again, and I used the 10 o' clock announcement as a cue to take my leave. I went straight back to my room and switched on the TV to try and keep my mind off things, but there was no news on today. In fact, there was nothing at all - there was only a bunch of static, no matter how many channels I flipped through. Frowning, I switched it off and decided to just go to sleep. I'd have to ask Flower-chan what happened to the TV signal tomorrow, but for now I was just stuck with my worries.

If this was really just part of the orientation, what was Flower-chan being so secretive about? Were we really trapped here? ... And if we were, could Monokuma help us escape? Flower-chan had driven him off once, but I had a feeling we hadn't seen the last of him.


	9. Zone 1: Wheel of Fortune

**hirowriter - But Monokuma has been so nice to them! Who knows, he could be good this time around...**

 **Catpocalypse - Maybe Flower-chan just thinks she's better than all those flowers who can't talk :P**

* * *

 _"Good morning, everybody! Aaah, it's a fresh new day today!"_

 _"Let's do our best to enjoy days filled with love!"_

* * *

A new day... despite my slight uneasiness, I woke up feeling pleasantly refreshed and ready to give Sector Earth a proper examination. Of course, that didn't stop me lazing about anyway, and I was in the middle of staring at the reflections bouncing off Xin's orb in the morning light when the deafening wails of an alarm suddenly ripped through the air. Orb instantly forgotten, I rushed over to my door and flung it open.

"Sprinklers...!?"

I hadn't noticed before now, but a huge network of sprinklers had been stealthily built into the underside of the observation deck. Judging by the fact they were currently dousing the gardens with high pressure sprays of water, it seemed safe to say that some kind of fire alarm had been set off... although I doubted there was any cause for concern now. Two doors to my right Yuuta emerged from his room, and upon spotting me greeted me with a nod and came over to watch the downpour with his hands over his ears.

"Geez… can you turn the fucking volume up any higher?" He scowled, once the painfully shrill alarm had finally cut out. "I heard from Flower-chan that those sprinklers automatically come on twice a day... but I guess they also trigger when the fire alarm goes off."

"Makes sense, but what could cause a fire..." Wait a second. Beatrice!

"Well, looks like the water's stopped too. Let's check it out." Yuuta either didn't notice or didn't comment on my epiphany, pointing out wispy trails of smoke rising into the air. They were coming from somewhere near the centre of the gardens, so I nodded in agreement and fell into step with him.

We made our over way to the fountain area, following a fresh set of footprints that trailed up to three people standing in the middle of the clearing; Masanori was one, unsurprisingly, and he was accompanied by Flower-chan... and _Asahara,_ of all people. Masanori's already tight shirt was wet enough to cling to his muscles - he was likely the one responsible for the footprints, which meant he'd run into the gardens while the sprinklers were still going - but he actually looked fairly dry next to the Ultimate Toymaker, who was soaked to the bone and holding what had likely been the source of the fire: the Onizuka Somethingdeath Inferno-... whatever. Beatrice's flamethrower.

That combined with the wet pile of ashes at Asahara's feet all pointed to him being the one who set off the fire alarm. What on earth had he been burning, and why?

Now that we were within earshot, I could hear Masanori sternly lecturing the shorter student. "It's lucky there was a fire alarm... playin' with fire is—"

"Hey, what are you doing!?" Beatrice stomped into the clearing from the opposite direction, her biting voice causing Asahara to flinch and drop the flamethrower. "The Onizuka Ultradeath Infernocannon isn't waterproof!"

"Waaah! Forgive meeeeeee!" He didn't even try to defend himself, crouching down into a little ball with his hands over his head.

I heard the crunching of more footsteps from behind me, and I turned to see Xin and Juzou arrive with confused looks on their faces. "Hey, what's going on? Was there a fire?"

"Please don't worry, everyone! I have the situation under control!" Flower-chan announced quickly, hastening to reassure all of us as everyone came running into the clearing within a minute of each other. Well, almost everyone; I thought such a loud siren would have been impossible to ignore, but it looked like Asuka was missing. Did she even need orders to react to a fire alarm? "I-I'm sorry Asahara, but it can't be helped... you broke the rules, so I have to punish you!"

"Nooooo... I'm too young to die..." He whimpered, but Flower-chan hurriedly dragged him off before we could ask more about what had happened.

"Isn't that a surprise? I didn't picture Asahara as the rule-breaking type. I was expecting, say, blondie over there." Nichira remarked, visibly amused by the situation. She waved an unopened lollipop in Toranosuke's direction, but her overt dig at him only elicited a sly smile.

"I would if there were any rules worth breaking. There's nothing fun to do." He answered shamelessly. "Though speaking of rule breaking, I am curious what that punishment is..."

Nichira shrugged. "We'll find out once she gets back... although I wouldn't get your hopes up."

...

... That is, if Flower-chan was planning to return. We patiently stood around and chatted amongst ourselves as we waited for her reappearance, but as minutes passed with no sign of the sunflower people were starting to get bored.

"Uh... did she say she was coming back?" Mio asked uncertainly, taking a couple of tentative steps backwards. "Maybe we should just head over to the cafe."

"Oh ho~ Flower-chan won't be back." Taking the redhead's question as a cue, a very familiar disembodied voice chose that moment to jump in and answer her. We couldn't see who was talking, but that distinctively robotic tone could only belong to...

"Monokuma!" Kaede exclaimed, as the bear himself crawled out from behind the fountain.

"The one and only!" Monokuma said proudly, puffing out his chest. "Your teacher is gone, so I'm here to handle the end of your orientation!"

"You mean... we'll be going back to Hope's Peak Academy?" She asked in stunned disbelief, and with just a single sentence you could practically see the weight vanish off Kaede's shoulders. Instantly, her expression lightened and she let out a breath of relief. "It's finally over..."

"Of course, you'll need something to celebrate your last day in Sector Earth!" He continued, brimming with enthusiasm. "So... how does a goodbye festival sound?"

"A festival? I've never been to one, but it sounds so exciting!" Xin hopped on board immediately, smiling in his typical clueless fashion.

"Hey Monokuma, what about Asahara? What did Flower-chan do with him?" Masanori asked with a frown.

"He's been 'grounded'. According to my notes, he'll be confined to his room for 12 hours."

"So he won't be able to come..." Mio trailed off, looking torn between anticipation and feeling bad for Asahara. "I'd feel bad going to a festival without him. Can you let him out?"

The bear quickly shook his head. "No can do! The rules are an irreplaceable part of Sector Earth, so I can't go against them."

"Who cares about some stupid festival?" Beatrice scoffed, unimpressed by Monokuma's proposal. "Ihihi, maybe I'll visit Asahara. I'll forgive him for breaking my Infernocannon, but he'll have to work to make up for it!"

For all I knew Beatrice could legitimately hate festivals, but it still struck me as nice of her to keep Asahara company. In fact, she'd been constantly dragging him off over our few days here... I doubt she'd admit it openly, but it seemed she had been looking out for Asahara in her own way.

"Oh? Well, suit yourself." Monokuma replied calmly, turning to address the rest of us. "This won't take long to set up, so come back after you're done eating!"

We did as we were told and hurried over to the cafe, simultaneously eating and speculating over what the 'goodbye festival' would entail. I made sure to mention that we shouldn't expect anything too lavish considering he was only catering for a single class of students, but Riley and Juzou's wild imaginations stirred up an excited buzz anyway. After finishing breakfast we headed back over to the festival area sans Beatrice, finally finding Asuka along the way; as it turned out, she had been enlisted by Monokuma to help with the set up.

Upon reaching the decorated clearing, cozy was the first word that came to mind to describe it. As expected it wasn't overly extravagant, but Monokuma had still put a commendable effort into making a miniature carnival; a striped canopy suspended from the observation deck shrouded the area like a makeshift tent, giving the space a circus-y vibe. Overhead, warm floodlights made up for the shadows cast by the tarp, and small lanterns hung on a network of banners strung between the trees above us like a festive spider web.

There wasn't enough space for any rides, but it was made up for by a perimeter jam packed with as many brightly-decorated stalls and games as it could fit. Typical snack stalls, arcade machines, and minigames complete with winnable prizes were everywhere, and there was even the occasional balloon-laden store filled with Monokuma themed merchandise— although oddly enough, I didn't see a trace of anything Flower-chan related.

We immediately dispersed into the area, grouping up into twos and threes to investigate whatever caught our interest. I spent the majority of my time leisurely going from stall to stall with Mio, but there was something for everyone; I spotted Masanori and Kaede eating from the stalls and watching Xin and Ayano investigate the merchandise together, while the more competitive students dived into the games in wholehearted pursuit of bragging rights - Asuka seemed to be thrashing whoever she was ordered to go up against in the arcade games, and Nichira was making snarky comments about Juzou's attempts to match Yuuta at the strength test.

Everyone was conscious of the fact that Asahara wasn't there, too, so we all made sure to pay him a visit at some point. He seemed to appreciate being able to vicariously attend the festival through us, but he wasn't overly hung up on missing out thanks to Beatrice doing an excellent job of keeping him busy... even if that was probably code for working him like a slave driver.

It was an entertaining afternoon, but of course nothing lasts forever. I was taking a break from the festival with Juzou at the animal enclosures when Monokuma addressed us through an unexpected announcement.

 _"The festival is coming to an end! Please come to the fountain for the closing ceremony!"_

"Closing ceremony? I wonder what it's going to be?" I mused. He didn't say anything about this before, and none of the stalls he had set up particularly struck me as useful for... whatever a closing ceremony entailed. Maybe another group activity?

"Doesn't it sound cool!? Maybe there'll be a performance!" Juzou replied, excitedly listing the possibilities to himself as he urged me to walk faster.

Monokuma was waiting as we gathered in the clearing, greeting us as we came in. "Welcome, welcome! Did you all have fun?"

"It was awesome!" Riley responded enthusiastically. "I love festivals!"

"Glad to hear it!" He replied happily. As soon as the last person had arrived - Beatrice, but no Asahara - he started motioning for us to back up. "Now, for the main event! This could get dangerous, so please clear some space!"

What was the closing ceremony going to be...? After the spontaneous wrestling match between Flower-chan and Monokuma yesterday I think I could be forgiven for believing I'd seen it all. However, Sector Earth was clearly determined to prove things could get even more ludicrous because a deep rumble started to shake the ground we were standing on... and on Monokuma's command, a giant drill broke through the surface of the ground. It showered dust everywhere and upended the nearby stalls as it rose up, quickly coming to a stop and revealing a cylindrical metal body attached to the drill that was proudly stamped with the Hope's Peak seal. Looking at the way it lay there, it reminded me of a rocket half buried in the ground.

"Wh... What the hell is that!?" Juzou stammered, staring wide eyed at the machine in front of us. "Some kinda tunnelling machine?"

"I suppose that makes sense, considering we're underground." Ayano wondered aloud. "But... can we really escape on that?"

"Don't worry, it's your ticket out of here! Trust in your school!" Monokuma exclaimed, patting the Hope's Peak symbol for emphasis. Upon closer inspection, it did seem like there was an outline of a door in the side. Were we... meant to ride this thing? "Weeell, but there's one little catch..."

"A catch?" I asked, leery of the direction this was going in. A catch was never a good thing.

"You see, there's just one tiny little quirk in the construction of my Escape Drill. It only fits 15 people." He explained coyly, linking his paws behind his back and drawing circles in the ground with his foot. "I had to move the activation mechanism to make room for another seat, so it has to be started up from the outside."

"So one of us will have to stay behind and activate the machine." Genichi concluded, quick to piece together what he was getting at. "What will happen to them? Won't they be stuck down here?"

"Nothing bad." He replied mysteriously. "They'll be part of an extra special program... but that's between me and them!"

"Oh my... that sounds rather exciting." Ayano said, although you'd never guess it from her unexcited tone. "But how should we choose who gets left behind?"

"Upupu... I thought you'd ask that, so I've prepared something already. We'll be leaving it to chance!" Monokuma announced, pounding twice on the drill machine's chassis. An alcove revealed itself at his command, containing a slot machine that bore our faces on it in place of the usual gambling symbols. He pulled the lever on the side, spurring the slots into motion.

"Is a slot machine really that unpredictable? I mean, we've got Xin here." Yuuta pointed out doubtfully.

"You'd think so, but Xin has his luck cycles! We don't know which one he's in, do we?" Monokuma countered evenly, which I supposed was a valid point.

Either way we'd find out soon enough, as the slots were already starting to slow down. We all watched intently as they matched up and came to a stop...

... On Xin's face.

"Ah... me?" He uttered slowly, clearly the only one genuinely surprised by the result. Honestly, it was amazing that he was somehow still oblivious to his own talent.

"I guess it's his lucky day!" Riley laughed. "Wait... or is it ours?"

"Upupu... you'll find out soon enough. Anyway, we leave at noon tomorrow, so don't be late!" With that Monokuma shooed us away from the clearing, only letting Asuka and Xin stay behind; the former to help pack up, and the latter to learn about how to operate the escape machine.

* * *

The evening passed with as much fanfare as our first night, as everyone committed themselves to making the most of our remaining time. I left for my room when the night-time announcement played as I usually did, but on the way back I decided on a whim to just walk around by myself. Once I'd set out, I immediately started to regret not doing it more while I had the chance. The moonlight illuminated the area enough to eliminate any creepiness factor, and the gardens felt much more serene in the gentle darkness.

My wandering eventually led me to the wishing well so I sat on its rim and stared up at the roof. At this time of night you could see the stars twinkling through the skylight, where the sun normally streamed in during the daytime. Unbidden, one of the lines from Flower-chan's night-time announcement drifted into my head.

 _"It's such a beautiful night... can you see the stars, everyone?"_

She had totally overstated their visibility, but I supposed she was still technically correct... plus, it was probably about as much as you could hope for while underground.

It reminded me of the saying that everyone back home would repeat to me. 'Once you graduate from Hope's Peak Academy, the sky's the limit.' The stars looked so far away from down here, but tomorrow we'd be heading back up to the surface. If you thought about it, we'd already be moving closer to them.

... Well, they would be unreachable either way, so honestly it wasn't that poetic of a thought.

"What a day! If festivals are always like that, I should go to them more!" My gaze snapped to the ground as a figure immediately identifiable as Masanori emerged from a path and called out to me. "Hey, you mind if I sit?"

I nodded, patting the spot next to me. He obliged and sat down heavily, letting his hands fall between his long legs as he gazed up at the stars with me.

"I wanna spend some time with everybody, even if it's just a little bit. I've managed to get everyone but you." He explained, smiling a little as he stole a glance at me. "Hope you don't mind me saving best for last! You're with other people a lot, so it's been hard to catch ya alone."

He... came out specifically looking for me? "Ah... you could have asked, you know."

"I was gonna if I couldn't find you tonight." Masanori replied with a nod. He shifted, pulling his ankle over his knee. "Ahaha, s'all good. Can you believe it's already our last night here?"

"Yeah, I'm going to miss this place." I said mournfully. Sure, it had been getting strange, but now we were preparing to leave I found myself wishing we could stay. Of course, that isn't to say that all of our questions had been answered. "But... are we really going to leave without Xin?"

"I dunno... but I'm not worried, it's not like he can't survive down here by himself." Masanori replied with reassuring positivity. "I mean, he gets to stay here longer than the rest of us! I thought he was supposed to give _us_ luck!"

That drew a short laugh out of me, and we spent a little while just talking about trivial things.

"Alright, I'm off. Don't stay up too late, okay?" Masanori eventually stood up, placing a hand on my shoulder lightly. "If you oversleep, I'll hafta kick your door down! Gyahaha!"

Bidding him good night, I stayed there for a little longer simply enjoying the quiet night, but after almost drifting off while sitting up I decided it was time to head back lest Masanori did end up kicking my door down. Back in my room I tried the TV one last time just to see if it was working, but the best I could manage was more random static. Through my sleepy haze I realised I had completely forgotten to ask Flower-chan about the reception, but it didn't matter now. She was gone, and tomorrow Monokuma would be taking us back to Hope's Peak Academy anyway.

Sector Earth had been exciting, but I was looking forward to attending the academy in its own way. Wouldn't it be nice to return to a normal school life?


	10. Zone 1: Jackpot!

**Only a short chapter this time, but at least I managed to get it out fairly quickly by my standards :P**

* * *

 _"Gooood morning! It's 7 o'clock! Rise and shine!"_

 _"Let's all strive to do our best today!"_

* * *

I woke up to the sound of Monokuma's voice. Even though it was our last morning, he had still gone to the effort of making his own morning announcement... kind of unnecessary if you asked me, but it's not like I cared that much either way.

Well, I should make the most of my time while I still can. I willed myself out of bed and managed to get ready in relatively short order, making it to the cafe doors just in time to see Asuka taking her leave. She zealously returned my greeting with her own but didn't stay to chat, heading straight into the gardens.

Figuring she was already finished, I went inside and quickly found myself sitting down at a table across from Juzou. We talked a little bit, but I also couldn't help but overhear three of the girls at the table next to us —Kaede, Nichira, and Mio— discussing something amongst themselves with rather sullen looks on their faces.

"I checked, but it didn't happen on the guy's side… I guess we're pretty lucky it happened so late." Mio was saying, playing with the ribbon around her neck. Admittedly I was curious about what they were talking about, but I thought better of cutting in. From what I could gather… they were complaining about something that happened last night.

"This place clearly wasn't designed by an Ultimate Architect." Kaede replied, frowning. "It was so loud… honestly, who thought it was a good idea to have something that could have killed—"

Of course, just as I was about to hear new information, a loud crackling came out of the speakers. Monokuma was addressing us, but this announcement was strangely bad quality; even before anything had been said, the sound was scratchy and jumbled, reducing sections of it to unintelligible static.

* * *

 _"Attention, attention! —-—-—- has been discovered!"_

 _"After a brief —-—-—-—-—-—-—-, we'll begin —-—-—-—!"_

* * *

"Huh? What's up with the speakers?" Riley pondered, looking up in confusion. The audible parts of the announcement had been so disjointed it was impossible to guess what it had been about. The morning announcement hadn't been that long ago, and it had been perfectly fine… so what was this one about, and why was it so mangled?

All of a sudden, the morning was starting to lose its pleasantness. Something was very, very odd.

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear." Monokuma suddenly appeared from under one of the tables, muttering anxiously to himself. There was something different about him today, too; his body language was agitated and restless, far from the relaxed attitude we'd seen from him so far. Maybe it was just because a toy couldn't express himself the way a human could, but there was something... off about it. His expressionless face was cold, a stark contrast to his antsy voice. "This is terrible, awful, not good at all!"

"Monokuma?" Ayano asked. She watched him guardedly, no doubt concerned by his odd behaviour. "Is something the matter?"

"Wrong? What _isn't_ wrong?" He said cryptically. "In fact, it's so wrong, you had better take a look for yourselves. In the fountain… yes, there's something very wrong."

"Whaddaya mean, 'wrong'? Is it blocked or something?" Juzou queried, but Monokuma wasn't interested in explaining himself further - he dismissed the question with a wave and left.

Of course things would go wrong on the day we were getting out of here. Looking at everyone's faces, nobody really had a clue what was going on but it was clear that this wasn't anything good.

"It sounds more serious than that." Masanori replied, frowning. Taking command of the situation, he stood up and addressed the room in an authoritative voice. "Sounds to me like he wants us to go see for ourselves. We better go check it out."

Nobody objected, so we decided to leave the cafe as a group. I noticed not everyone was here so I hung back a little to check for stragglers, taking a headcount as people walked out the door; by my count, there were two guys and three girls missing. Even after I checked the kitchen and store room, however, I didn't manage to find anyone. It was actually a little surprising; not that I was expecting anyone to lag behind, but apart from Asuka none of the latecomers had turned up at all.

There was nothing else I could do at the cafe, so I quickly left and caught up with everyone hurrying towards the fountain clearing. I heard a few people murmuring to each other, but the definite air of worry put a damper on conversation; personally, I was too absorbed in my own thoughts to even think about talking.

" _In the fountain… yes, there's something very wrong."_

That's what Monokuma had told us. What could you possibly put into a fountain, and be so bad that we need to see it for ourselves? The question was so strange I couldn't even begin to hazard a guess. I could only head towards our destination, and try to stem the sense of anticipation and dread that was pressing against my chest. Of course, it wasn't far - before I knew it, we had arrived.

As we entered the clearing, the people at the front of the group suddenly stopped. I think someone ahead might have gasped; I could barely hear it over my heart pounding in my ears. Urgently, I wormed past the people blocking my vision… and the moment I was through, suspense gave way to pure shock as my brain registered what greeted me.

Monokuma was right… oh yes, there was plenty wrong. Now I had a full view of the fountain clearing, everything wrong with the picture in front of me was hitting me all at once. The escape machine was still sticking out in all its bizarre glory, of course, and there was the fountain; Asuka, Asahara, and Beatrice were standing close to the rim, but more importantly something had been mixed into its waters, dying the once pristine fluid an ugly pale red. But the worst thing of all was my classmate— no, _friend_ — lying there next to the trio, motionless and slumped over the fountain's edge.

 _Dead body._

That's the first thought that popped into my head, and it made my stomach turn. The world spun as I felt adrenaline start to course through my veins. He wouldn't be able to breathe face down in the water, so why wasn't he moving? The fountain… he must have been bleeding, because that was his blood mixing with the fountain. It was as if the water had tried to wash away the fluids seeping out of his body, but had only succeeded in dirtying itself.

What's going on? Why is he…?

I wanted to turn away, but the image had already been thoroughly burned into my brain. I knew who was lying there. Those golden clothes glowing softly in the morning light… they were unmistakable, they could only belong to one person—

"Xin…! XIIIIIN!"

* * *

 **Well, it's taken a little while to get into the swing of things... good job if you're managed to stick with it so far, but normal days are now coming to an end. It's murder time!**


	11. Zone 1: Against All Odds (Investigation)

**The investigation is finally here! It also ended up way longer than I intended, so I'm splitting it into two chapters (and I'll include the full list of evidence at the end of the second one).**

* * *

"Xin…? Hey, what's the big idea?" Kaede asked, shock rendering her voice to barely more than a whisper. She took a step forward, but Beatrice flung her hand out.

"Don't move!" She shouted furiously. "This is a crime scene, you morons! No one comes any closer!"

"Crime scene?" Masanori asked. He moved in as well, fists clenched tightly. "What's wrong with him, Beatrice? Is he okay?"

"Grr, how thick are you? Xin is dead! D-E-A-D!"

"No no no, don't fuck with me," he didn't back down, his features quickly darkening into a grimace. "I-I know CPR, maybe Juzou can look at— hey, are you alright?!"

Concern suddenly flashed across Masanori's face, as he made it to Juzou's side in two long strides. I hadn't realised because he was behind me, but the Ultimate Pathologist was in a state of near-panic.

"Fuckin' christ… what the fuck…" Juzou panted. He was making an obvious effort to avoid looking at Xin, yet beads of sweat were streaming down his face and he was clearly shaking. He looked… fragile, like this. "Haaah—…! I-I'm gonna be sick…"

"Hey, man up already!" Beatrice shot accusingly. "Aren't you a pathologist!? What are you getting worked up for!?"

"S…shut up…!" He attempted something resembling a retort through laboured breaths. "I… I can't do it, okay!? Why do you think I'm not a doctor!?"

"What, so you picked second best? How did you even get into this school!?"

"That's enough, Beatrice," I quickly intervened. If things continued at this rate, Juzou was either going to throw up or straight up collapse. "We need to get Juzou out of here."

"I… I'll do it. Leave him to me," Kaede volunteered immediately. Gingerly, she took Juzou's arm from Masanori and hurriedly led him out of the clearing.

"It's unfortunate, isn't it?" Monokuma asked, popping up after the two left. "I hate to interrupt, but are you still planning to board the Escape Drill? I can't wait forever, you know!"

Riley gasped in shock at his lack of sympathy. "Are you serious!? We can't leave Xin like this!"

"I agree, but what should we do?" Ayano pointed out anxiously. "Our phones have been taken, so we can't call the police…"

Which was… a really good point, actually. What on earth were we going to do now…?

"We can't sit around on our heels. Let's figure out who did it ourselves," Mio jumped in before a heavy silence could settle over us, suddenly offering up a solution. "Considering the situation, I think it's the least we can do."

"Can a bunch of highschoolers really figure this out?" Yuuta asked sceptically. "I mean, we're Ultimates, but it's not like we have any detectives here…"

"I'm the Ultimate Journalist. Finding the truth is what I do… and I _know_ the truth is here. If we put our heads together, I think it's doable," she insisted. "This is a 'closed circle' murder, if anyone has heard the term before. There's no way out, so all the clues to what happened to Xin will be in here somewhere."

I turned the thought over in my head for a moment. My thoughts pretty much echoed Yuuta, but when she put it that way… it definitely seemed like a massive burden to take on, but Mio had spoken with a persuasive conviction in her voice. We had only known each other for a few days, but I trusted her - so if she really believed that we could do it, then that was enough for me.

"I'm with Mio. I think we should try it," I said aloud. It's not like we had many other options right now, so despite my reservations I was willing to give it a shot. I think everyone else understood that too, because the others voiced their agreement one by one until there was a eventual —if a bit uncertain— agreement between us.

"Hm… okay! I see how it is," Monokuma announced seeing we had reached a decision, putting his paws on his hips. "If 'murder investigation' is how you want to play it, then I'll help out as best I can. In fact, I bet I know who did it!"

Seriously!? "Wha—? Who is it!?" I asked, practically shouting at him.

"I can't tell you _that_ … but I have a little inside knowledge, you see. I know the culprit broke the Sector Earth rules, but they had special permission to avoid punishment," he explained patiently. "Obviously, it must have been the **traitor**! I didn't want to bring it up so soon, but there's a very bad person among you. I bet they could do something like this."

"A traitor…?" Riley frowned, rubbing her chin lightly. "I don't think I follow."

"Who cares about that?!" Beatrice snapped. "Are you seriously suggesting one of us killed him!? Maybe it was you!"

"Me? It's because I'm a bear, isn't it!?" Monokuma retorted indignantly. "No, no, it was one of you. Why would I want to kill poor Xin? I'm just trying to get you all back to Hope's Peak Academy."

"Throwing around accusations is going to get us nowhere. Times like this is when a cool head prevails, trust me," Genichi cut in calmly. "At the very least, he's not any more likely than one of us to be the culprit."

"Genichi…!" The bear gasped happily. "Anyway, time is ticking… so I suggest you get investigating!"

Monokuma disappeared the moment he'd finishing saying his piece, so Beatrice settled for glaring at the spot he had just vacated. "What the hell was that traitor stuff about? Grr… there's something off about that bear."

"Just ignore it. We should focus on figuring out what happened to Xin," Genichi replied, crossing his arms in thought. "We've got a lot of ground to cover, so I say we split up and investigate separately. We can reconvene later and compile what we've found."

"So we hafta figure this out between us, huh…" Masanori wondered. "I'm happy to help, but what exactly are we lookin' for?"

"Ah… that's a little hard to quantify. We're looking for anything related to Xin's death, so be on the lookout for anything suspicious."

"Oh," he mumbled. He rubbed the back of his neck, seeming a little disheartened. "I'm not any good at that kinda stuff… but don't worry, I'm gonna give it my best shot!"

"Then let's do this!" Riley cheered, charging forward. "Okay! Investigation is—"

"Halt!" Asuka barked. Riley had barely managed to make two steps before the Ultimate Servant blocked her path. "You are not permitted to come any closer. I have been ordered by Beatrice to prevent interference by punching intruders in the face!"

"What? Since when!?"

Asuka only bowed formally in apology, before starting to advance on us. "Prepare yourselves!"

"Asuka?! Hey, violence is totally not the answer!" Riley said quickly, hurriedly backing up to maintain a safe distance from the Ultimate Servant. "I order you to, uh… not punch me in the face?"

"Unfortunately, I cannot comply! I have also been ordered by Beatrice to ignore your orders!"

"Eh, you can do that? Interesting, interesting…" From somewhere behind me I heard Lana muttering to herself, something which would have concerned me more if it weren't for the fact that Asuka was still getting closer.

"Tch, what the hell is this…" Toranosuke muttered. "Isn't this gaming the system?"

"Ihihihi! I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about!" The Ultimate Genius cackled, waving her hand dismissively.

"Kyaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

That voice…! There was a sudden scream, followed by the appearance of a familiar face. Well, flower.

"W-w-w-w-w, what's going on here!?" Flower-chan cried frantically, trying to take in the scene as quickly as possible.

"Flower-chan! What are you doing here?" I exclaimed. Didn't Monokuma say she wasn't coming back?

Of course, in that instant I realised two things simultaneously; first, Flower-chan had chosen to make her reappearance right next to Asuka, which put her right in the danger zone… and second, it was already far too late to stop what was about to happen.

"Flower-chan!" Asuka thundered, her intense red eyes locking on the little flower. "Are you trying to interfere!? I cannot allow this!"

"Eh? What are you talking about, Asu—" Flower-chan barely had time to register surprise before the purple-haired student violently kicked her into the side of the fountain. She stood no chance against the hard rock, instantly shattering against it with a sharp crack.

"Oh no…! Asuka killed Flower-chan!" Mio gasped. "Now we'll never find out why she's back!"

"Hey, Asuka!" Beatrice scolded, "I said to punch them in the face, not kick! Are you the Ultimate Servant or what?!"

"Your order was not specific enough! Flower-chan does not have a face!"

"What the heck? What kind of technicality is that!?" She yelled back, unimpressed with Asuka's excuses. "I don't care! I wanna see someone get punched!"

"Yes, at once! But please remember to cover technicalities next time!" Bowing to acknowledge her new command, Asuka strode over towards the shattered pot and immediately began vigorously pounding the soil with her fists.

"Honestly, I don't really care that much… but isn't this really over the top?" Nichira asked, watching Asuka pulverise Flower-chan's 'corpse' with evident disinterest.

"Don't sweat it. Flowers can't feel pain," Genichi said, wincing as the purple-haired servant landed a particularly solid hit. "… Well, by this point she probably wouldn't be able to feel pain anyway. Asuka sure knows how to lay down a beating."

"Guys? Let's stay on track, yeah?" Masanori coached gently. Right, investigation.

I tore my gaze away from the commotion Asuka was making and tried to focus on our new goal. In truth, I was actually quite glad the serious atmosphere had evaporated somewhat, no doubt due to a combination of things moving too fast for me to digest and Asuka causing the situation spiral into absurdity. More importantly, now that Asuka had made an unnecessarily bloodthirsty example of Flower-chan, it was abundantly clear she wasn't going to be letting anyone near Xin's body any time soon.

Other people were already starting to move, so I followed the first thought that popped into my head and looked around for Mio. I had no idea where to even start in something like this, so I figured that my time would be best spent assisting someone who actually knew what they were doing. Thankfully, she hadn't left yet, and she enthusiastically accepted my idea of acting as her assistant. With that set, all that was left was the hard part…

* * *

 _ **Location: Fountain | Sector Earth**_

 _The area where we discovered Xin's body. The fountain and escape drill sit undisturbed, and the clearing is currently populated by me, Mio, Asahara, Beatrice, and Asuka. The latter still bars access to Xin's body, so everyone else has left to investigate other areas of Sector Earth._

* * *

SHINJI: Well, I guess it's time to investigate. What would you do first on a case like this?

MIO: Hm… it's definitely clear we need to collect as much evidence as we can.

MIO: However! We need to cover our bases first, otherwise we won't understand the situation properly.

MIO: Also, don't tell anyone I said this… but it'll give everyone else has a head start in their investigation, so we can just ask around instead of investigating ourselves.

SHINJI: … Nice.

MIO: Efficiency is key in any good investigation! So before we go anywhere, let's start with the basics. What information do we have on hand?

SHINJI: Well, Monokuma just sent us something…

MIO: Hm, a good place to start. Let's make a note of it.

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Monokuma File A (1) ::**

 _Victim: Ultimate Good Luck Xin Sakai._

 _Time of Death: Unknown._

 _Cause of Death: Multiple stab wounds to torso inflicted with a bladed weapon._

 _Additional Notes: The victim would only have lived a short time before dying._

* * *

MIO: Monokuma File, huh…? I guess this is his version of an autopsy report.

MIO: Not that there's much to it. The main thing we can take from it is that Xin was killed with a bladed weapon.

SHINJI: What, like a sword? Where would you even get one of those?

MIO: Not necessarily. The file only specifies a blade, so it could be something like a knife or a pair of scissors too.

MIO: I'm sure there are a few places to get something like that… but you're right, it wouldn't be that easy to come by. We should keep an eye out for anything that could have been used.

SHINJI: Alright… that shouldn't be too hard, I suppose.

MIO: See, progress! There's also something else we can get from our student IDs. I'll save you the trouble of guessing— we're getting a refresher on the rulebook Flower-chan gave us.

SHINJI: The rules…?

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Sector Earth Rules (2) ::**

 _ **#1.**_ _Rule breaking will incur a punishment, so please obey the rules!_

 _ **#2.**_ _Malicious destruction of property is forbidden. Please be nice to your fellow students!_

 _ **#3.**_ _Let's keep Sector Earth clean! Littering is forbidden._

 _ **#4.**_ _To ensure water purity, the fountain in the central clearing is off limits. Please do not touch!_

 _ **#5.**_ _Night time occurs between 10 pm and 7 am. During this period, the cafe is locked and the observation deck elevator will not run. However, there is no curfew, so you may move around Sector Earth whenever you wish!_

* * *

MIO: In a 'closed circle murder' situation like this, rules are important to know. You can think of them as parameters of the method used.

MIO: The rules apply to all of us, so if the culprit is a student they have to abide by them as well. If we take that into consideration, it could help us understand what they did and why.

SHINJI: Not a bad sales pitch… but didn't Monokuma say earlier that the culprit broke the rules?

MIO: Oh yeah… um, forget I said anything.

MIO: Just kidding! That works in our favour too, you know. We just have to keep an eye out for rule breaking.

MIO: If we find it, we know the culprit was responsible. That's good, because we'll need to piece together everything the culprit did to commit the murder.

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Culprit's Rule Breaking (3) ::**

 _According to Monokuma, the culprit broke some of the Sector Earth rules but wasn't punished for it. Why or how did they get away with it…?_

* * *

SHINJI: Woah, that's smart. I didn't think of it that way.

MIO: Ehehe… there's always a silver lining. Anyway, I think we're ready to get started. Let's see if we can convince Beatrice to let us look at Xin.

ASUKA: …

SHINJI: (A-Asuka us staring us down…)

MIO: … Well, if we can get past Asuka. What's Beatrice doing over there, anyway…?

BEATRICE: Hey Asahara! Where do you think you're going?!

ASAHARA: Um, I was going to go investigate…

BEATRICE: Investigate what? You're staying here with me and Asuka!

ASAHARA: B… But three is my unlucky number… What if I get cursed and reincarnate as a slug?

BEATRICE: Who cares? You're talking to the Ultimate Genius, I don't give a crap about curses!

ASAHARA: Uuuu, it's no use… I can feel the universe turning against me…

BEATRICE: Ihihihi, too bad! Now quit whining and give me your tools!

ASAHARA: Eh? W… What are you going to do with them?

BEATRICE: What do you think I'm going to do, you idiot? The autopsy!

ASAHARA: Nooooooo! I don't want my tools to have blood all over them!

BEATRICE: Ihihi! Asuka, take Asahara's tools and give them to me!

ASUKA: Yes, at once!

SHINJI: Hey Beatrice, aren't you being kind of heartless? You shouldn't bully Asahara into it if he doesn't want to.

BEATRICE: Heartless?! Do you think I'm enjoying this?!

BEATRICE: Listen up, you silver-haired monkey. If you think I'm letting the loser who did this get away, you've got another thing coming.

BEATRICE: Someone needs to examine Xin, and I'm the only one who can do it as long as that idiot pathologist is being useless. Therefore, I'm doing an important role… so I'm going to have an assistant whether he likes it or not!

BEATRICE: Grr… I should be out solving crimes, but here I am doing grunt work. Asahara, this is all your fault!

ASAHARA: Waah! Forgive meee!

SHINJI: (Damn it, Beatrice…! It's annoying, but she does have a point…)

BEATRICE: Speaking of which, what are you two doing here?! Let me work in peace!

MIO: Don't worry, we won't be here for long. We'll clear out after this, but can you at least tell us how you found the body?

BEATRICE: Hm… Fine! I'll allow it, so listen up!

BEATRICE: I found Xin when I went for a walk, so I called Asuka to secure the area!

MIO: Eh? How did you call Asuka?

BEATRICE: You can call her with your student ID. What, didn't you know that?

SHINJI: I never heard anything about that. Since when?

BEATRICE: Since always! What good would an Ultimate Servant be if you can't call them?!

BEATRICE: It's a secret function, but I guess you're all too stupid to figure it out. Ihihi.

MIO: You know… I never really thought about it, but that actually does make sense.

SHINJI: I suppose if anyone would know about it, it'd be Beatrice. I guess that's also why Asuka always seems to be hovering around her…

MIO: I'm totally making use of that in the future. How do you do it?

BEATRICE: As if I'd tell you that! It's my secret weapon!

MIO: Whaat? That's lame!

BEATRICE: Ihihi! If you're so desperate to know, figure it out yourself!

BEATRICE: Anyway, I didn't know where Asahara was, so I covered the area while Asuka retrieved him.

SHINJI: Wait, why Asahara? Would he even want to see the body?

BEATRICE: Pff, of course not. Since when did that stop me?

SHINJI: (… Ouch. He really can't catch a break.)

BEATRICE: That's all. When she dragged him over here, that weird announcement played.

BEATRICE: Ihihi… I take cash or credit card. I even tolerated you interrupting me to ask questions, so you better pay extra.

MIO: Why would we pay you? I was just asking for background…

MIO: It's good to know everything that happened, but I don't think it's going to help us solve this.

BEATRICE: Huh!? You think my testimony isn't evidence-worthy?!

BEATRICE: Grr… then why ask in the first place!? I'm done wasting my time here!

[ Beatrice storms off in a huff. Asahara isn't escaping her clutches any time soon and I don't want to risk getting punched in the face by Asuka, so there's nothing else we can do here for now. ]

SHINJI: Well… I guess we'd better move on. Where do you think we should go now?

MIO: Xin's room is probably the logical location... but I'd actually like to go to the animal enclosures first.

SHINJI: The enclosures? What's over there?

MIO: Honestly, I'm not sure. I don't even know if it's related, but there's something I'd like to check.

SHINJI: Hey, you're the boss. Let's go.

* * *

 _ **Location: Animal Enclosures | Sector Earth**_

 _There's a solemn silence here, as if the animals know what's going on too. Riley is here and it looks like she's inspecting something, but other than that this area looks perfectly normal. I wonder what Mio wants to check for…?_

* * *

MIO: Ah, Riley!

RILEY: Hello! Come to investigate the crime scene?

SHINJI: Crime scene? But Xin is over at the fountain…

RILEY: No, not that crime scene. Something else happened here!

RILEY: Get in the loop, Shinji! It's the talk of the town!

SHINJI: A… alright. Can you fill me in?

RILEY: Heh heh, I guess I could be convinced to.

RILEY: Picture it! There was a really suspicious incident last night! It was like, uh… a night time incident!

SHINJI: (Real creative naming, there…)

SHINJI: Well, it sounds suspicious so far. What happened?

RILEY: There was a really big crashing noise outside the girls' rooms! You should have been there, it was super loud!

RILEY: When I went out to see what caused it… I saw a mysterious black mass!

RILEY: That's suspicious, isn't it!? I couldn't believe there were people who didn't come out to see what happened!

SHINJI: That is strange. If you heard something that loud, it'd be natural to come see what was happening…

RILEY: Let's see… I think Beatrice, Ayano, and Lana were the ones missing.

MIO: Didn't Asuka not come out as well? Nichira ended up calling her out to make her investigate for us.

RILEY: Ah, you're right! Ahaha, I forgot about that…

RILEY: Anyway, ready for the explanation!? While I was sleeping, one of the hanging pots fell down and smashed to pieces!

RILEY: It looked like Flower-chan after Asuka beat her up! If that thing hit me, I could have died!

SHINJI: (But weren't you asleep? Why would you have been outside…?)

MIO: We thought it might have been some sort of fault in the suspension cables, but according to Asuka it was knocked down by an owl that escaped the enclosures.

RILEY: Yeah, and it's totally true! Look, someone opened up the enclosures!

SHINJI: (Ah… I hadn't realised that there were doors on the enclosure walls, but one is open right now. Definitely big enough for an owl to fit through.)

MIO: Good work! That confirms what Asuka told us, so I'll write all that down.

RILEY: Ha, how's that for detective work!? Man I'm good at this stuff!

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: The Night Time Incident (4) ::**

 _A hanging flower pot near the girls' rooms fell down and broke last night; Kaede, Nichira, Riley, and Mio left their rooms to investigate. Apparently, it was caused by an escaped owl._

* * *

MIO: … …

MIO: Wait, but who opened it? I'd assumed that the owl had managed to escape by itself...

RILEY: Oh, good question. Now I think about it, Asuka didn't say anything about the enclosure door being open…

RILEY: More importantly, that means someone caused the night time incident! Quick, write that down too!

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Released Animal (5) ::**

 _Someone unlatched a gate on the animal enclosures, which allowed an owl to escape that caused the night time incident. I wonder who could have done it…?_

* * *

MIO: Since when did we have owls, anyway? I never saw one.

SHINJI: Owls only come out at night, don't they? I know I only ever visited the animal enclosures during the day, so I must have missed them.

SHINJI: But anyway… do you think all this is related to Xin?

RILEY: Eh? Oh crap, I forgot we're investigating that too!

RILEY: Hmmm…

RILEY: … … …

RILEY: To be honest, I don't see how it ties in at all…

RILEY: But it happened last night, so that's totally suspicious! Xin could have been killed if he was hit by it, you know!

MIO: Technically true, but I think we're going to need a little more than that to prove a connection…

MIO: Anyway, that's everything I wanted to investigate here. Shall we move on, Shinji?

RILEY: Oh, you guys are leaving? Check out the girls' dorms for me!

RILEY: It's where the pot fell, so you might find something. Just be on the lookout for rogue flower pots, okay?!

SHINJI: … Sure. It's nearby, so I guess we may as well check it out now.

* * *

 _ **Location: Girls' Rooms | Sector Earth**_

 _Everyone is busy investigating, so none of the girls seem to be around… well, except for Mio. There's no guarantee the night time incident is even related to the murder so it's honestly a long shot to expect any evidence here, and I sure don't see anything that strikes me as suspicious. Yuuta seems to have had the same idea as us though, because he's here as well._

* * *

MIO: Oh, Yuuta!

YUUTA: Hey. What are you two doing here?

SHINJI: We were sent here by Riley. I take it you're investigating the night time incident too?

YUUTA: Is that what you're calling it…? I heard about it from Nichira, so I came to look around.

YUUTA: Asuka was right about it being a flower pot, at least. You can see where it used to be, but the debris has been cleared away already.

SHINJI: (True… I don't know what Riley was hoping we'd find, but there's nothing here.)

YUUTA: Although, if it was caused by an owl… I wonder where it is now?

MIO: Sleeping somewhere, maybe? It's daytime now, after all.

YUUTA: I guess so. … It won't be here, anyway.

SHINJI: So there's nothing here.

SHINJI: (It was good to check, but this was totally a waste of time…)

YUUTA: Yeah. I did find out something, though.

YUUTA: Do you know when the sprinklers come on? The device that controls them is in the cafe's storeroom.

YUUTA: There was even a pamphlet… they automatically go off every day at 6 AM and 11 PM, and leave the ground wet for half an hour.

MIO: Hm… so in other words, one hour before morning, and one hour after nightfall.

YUUTA: Yeah. Uh, it might not be important… but I saw footprints near Xin, so I thought I should find out.

SHINJI: (There were footprints…? He must have good eyes, because I hadn't noticed at all.)

SHINJI: (He's definitely right about the other one, though. You don't leave footprints in the gardens when the ground is dry.)

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Sprinkler System (6) ::**

 _There are sprinklers placed around the Sector Earth gardens that water the plants every day at 6:00 am and 11:00 pm. However, they also double as fire sprinklers when smoke is detected. For half an hour after the sprinklers are active, walking on the ground will leave footprints._

* * *

YUUTA: Got that? There's nothing else here, so I'm moving on… good luck.

SHINJI: Hopefully we won't need it, but good luck to you too.

SHINJI: Now… where should we go next?

MIO: Let's see… investigating Xin's room is definitely high on our priority list, but it's also on the opposite side of the sector right now. I don't want to backtrack all day, so we should check out other areas as we head towards it.

SHINJI: Well, I think I saw Lana up on the observation deck. She was one of the girls who didn't come out during the night time incident, right?

MIO: Right! It'll be a good opportunity to ask her about that. Let's go.

* * *

 _ **Location: Observation Deck | Sector Earth**_

 _Lana is still here when we reach the observation deck. I don't see anything of interest —which is to be expected, considering you can't hide anything up here— but Lana is leaning over the railing in a rather suspicious manner. Ten bucks says she's plotting something._

* * *

LANA: Well well, if it isn't Shinji and Mio. Watcha doin'?

MIO: I'm glad you ask! We're looking into the night time incident that happened last night.

LANA: 'Night time incident'? No idea what you're talkin' about. Invite me next time, will ya?

MIO: But… it was a really loud crash right outside your room. Don't tell me you didn't hear it?

LANA: Nup, didn't hear a thing!

LANA: Let me tell you, once ya live on a ship for a while you learn to block out noise. I sleep like a log, y'see.

LANA: Hehe… next time you wanna wake me up, just yell 'I promise there's treasure!' I'll be up right away!

LANA: But there better be real treasure, yeah? If not, I'll have to refer to the Great Six Secrets to Success in Business, rule five.

LANA: Funny rule, that one. Do either of you happen to remember it?

SHINJI: … It's the leg breaking one, isn't it.

LANA: Ohoho, I see we're learning. Keep that up and ya might make a good lackey one day!

MIO: Ah, the sidekick position I never made? You should go for it Shinji, you have my blessing!

SHINJI: Uh… I'll pass, thanks. (Hey! I don't want your hand-me-down title!)

MIO: But anyway, that's in the past now. What are you doing up here, Lana?

LANA: Stagin' an assault! I wanna check out Xin, so I've decided to climb down this here rock wall to get past Asuka!

LANA: It's close to the fountain, see, so I can get down without even touching the ground.

LANA: It'll be like scaling a ship without the rocking. Easy peasy!

SHINJI: (That's right… it's possible to move between the fountain clearing and the observation deck using that wall. I saw Masanori do it on our first day here.)

SHINJI: (We don't have any evidence anyone actually used it, but it's probably a good idea to make a note of it anyway.)

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Rock Wall (7) ::**

 _A climbable rock wall in the central clearing connects the gardens and the observation deck, and provides an alternate route to using the elevator. It's situated very close to the fountain._

* * *

MIO: Well, sounds like you've got a plan… but what are you going to do about Asuka? I mean, she'll still be there even if you can get to Xin.

LANA: We improvise! Me and Shinji have the high ground, so it'll all work out.

SHINJI: What kind of plan is 'improvise'...?

SHINJI: And since when was it a 'we'!?

LANA: Word of advice, Shinji: You'll never get anywhere in life with that outlook. If you have a can-do attitude like me, you can shoot for the stars!

LANA: Now, are we ready? Is that a yes I hear?

SHINJI: No! Not ready!

SHINJI: Lana, we're going to get punched in the face by Asuka. This is the stupidest plan I've ever—

LANA: No time for dawdling, plan sorted! Great Six Secrets to Success in Business: Golden Rule #1! DIVERSIFY, DIVERSI—

MONOKUMA: Hello! How's your investigation coming along?

LANA: … Eh? Oh, Monokuma! I guess I'll put our plan on hold for the moment.

SHINJI: (… Thank god. My life was starting to flash in front of my eyes…)

MIO: It's going pretty well, all things considered. Are you here to tell us something, Monokuma?

MONOKUMA: Upupu… you know me too well.

MONOKUMA: That's right! I'm here to kick you out.

MIO: What…!? Hey, what kind of teacher does that?

LANA: You can't force me to go anywhere! Ohoho, touch me and I'll sue ya for abusing a student.

MONOKUMA: Haah, so harsh… I'm only trying to do my best!

MONOKUMA: I said I was going to help you, didn't I? I have something very special in mind!

MONOKUMA: Since I'm sure you're all dying to know, I'll be setting up a special arena here. But building takes time, and I'll have to make this a staff-only construction zone.

SHINJI: (An arena…?)

SHINJI: Well, he _is_ doing it to help us… I don't think there's anything up here anyway, so we may as well clear out.

MIO: That's true… oh, but since you're kicking us out, can you get Beatrice to let us examine Xin's body? She hasn't let anyone through since we started investigating.

MONOKUMA: Hm? Well, alright. If it's for your investigation, I'm happy to help!

LANA: Huh… is this diplomacy? Odd, I didn't think that worked in the real world…

SHINJI: (… I'm just going to leave that one alone. Time to go talk to Beatrice.)

SHINJI: Hey Beatrice, can we come take a look at Xin yet?

BEATRICE: Ihihi! Why don't you come down here and beg?

MONOKUMA: Upupu… I'll take it from here.

MONOKUMA: Hey Asuka! There's been an unexpected turn of events… I'm kicking these guys out, so they have nowhere else to go. As your teacher, please let them investigate poor Xin!

ASUKA: Understood! I will not punch them in the face!

BEATRICE: Hey, what the heck…!? How did you get administrative permission!?

BEATRICE: Grr… Fine! See if I care!

SHINJI: (Score! Alright, down the wall…)

* * *

 _ **Location: Fountai** **n |** **Sector Earth**_

 _We've finally been granted permission by The Lord Almighty Beatrice to investigate the area around Xin's body. Now I have the opportunity to get a closer look I can already see something lying near Xin, but… did Asuka put up a fence around his body?_

* * *

ASAHARA: My… my tools…

BEATRICE: Psh, quit whining. It's not like I actually cut him open.

SHINJI: Er… I'm almost afraid to ask, but what's with the fence?

ASUKA: Beatrice ordered me to secure the area! With a physical blockade in place, I will be able to ward off over 200 people attempting to rush the scene at once!

MIO: Wow, talk about efficiency! But how many people would a Monokuma count as?

ASUKA: Approximately a 0.18:1 ratio to an adult male! His small stature would make him an effective non-lethal projectile!

LANA: What, only non-lethal? Maybe if we filled him with lead and shot him outta a cannon…

MONOKUMA: Hey! I heard that!

BEATRICE: Enough with the peanut gallery! Are you here to investigate or what!?

SHINJI: (Hm… there are a couple of things to look at here. We should talk to Beatrice, too.)

[ Beatrice seems to be taking a break now we've barged in, so it's a good time to talk to her. I'm still considering what I should ask about when Mio beats me to it. ]

MIO: So Beatrice, do you remember hearing anything strange last night? A crash, perhaps?

BEATRICE: Do you think I'm an idiot!? Of course I heard it!

MIO: Eh, you did? Why didn't you come out to have a look?

BEATRICE: Like I cared! I have better things to do than investigate weird noises!

BEATRICE: Of course, you're not a genius so I don't expect you to understand my priorities.

SHINJI: (I can agree to that last part, at least. The way she acts sure is incomprehensible sometimes…)

SHINJI: Well, is there anything else you can tell us about Xin?

ASAHARA: U-um, not really… but we did find the weapon.

BEATRICE: Ihihi, thanks to my amazing eyesight! You can see it in the fountain under Xin!

MIO: Oh, that sounds promising. What is it?

BEATRICE: Do you expect miracles out of me now or something? We're not allowed to move Xin or that weapon out of the fountain, so it's hard to tell.

SHINJI: (That's right, the fountain is off limits thanks to one of the Sector Earth rules… well, no points for guessing it was the culprit who threw the weapon in there.)

BEATRICE: Grr… the culprit is allowed to break the rules, but not us? What kind of stupid system is this?!

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: The Unknown Weapon (8) ::**

 _The murder weapon was thrown into the fountain, but it's too obscured to identify. Thanks to the Sector Earth rules, we can't retrieve it..._

* * *

LANA: It sure is a mystery. Who would've thought there's a way around the rules I don't know about?

LANA: There's only one thing I can think of. They must've asked!

MIO: Eh? As in, asked Monokuma to OK it?

ASAHARA: Um, but wouldn't that mean… Monokuma knows who the culprit is…

MIO: Well… that would be the natural conclusion...

SHINJI: M-Maybe there's some kind of request system we don't know about? He wouldn't have given them permission himself… right?

LANA: Ohoho… that wasn't a serious suggestion, you know. What kinda culprit would be that stupid?

LANA: Everyone knows the real way to ask for permission is to get them to sign a 600 page contract! Stick it real small in the fine print, and you're golden!

SHINJI: (I suppose I should appreciate the effort, but somehow I don't think there are any 600 page contracts involved here.)

SHINJI: (And of course, it still doesn't answer the main question. How did the culprit get permission to break the rules? … Could they?)

[ Anyway, I have better things to do than ponder the mysteries of this case right now. Next up on my list of interest is the electronic ID lying near Xin. ]

SHINJI: I guess this belongs to Xin. It's not looking so good…

SHINJI: (In fact, it's not even turning on. I could definitely see a 'bladed weapon' inflicting this kind of damage.)

SHINJI: (Hm... Actually, Asuka hasn't said anything yet. I wonder what she thinks?)

SHINJI: Hey Asuka, what do you make of this ID? Any ideas on how it got broken?

ASUKA: …

ASUKA: That is not an order! Please only command me to do things!

SHINJI: (... Never mind.)

MIO: I think it's reasonable to say it got broken when he was attacked by the culprit. It wouldn't exactly be strange for him to be holding it.

LANA: Yeah, I bring mine out all the time! I still can't believe we can use these things as room keys!

LANA: Technology sure is amazing! I'll hafta install some on my ship.

SHINJI: (I can't argue with the convenience… but why on earth would you need one on a ship?)

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Xin's Student ID (9) ::**

 _Electronic IDs we use to unlock the doors to our rooms. This particular one belongs to Xin, but it's been heavily damaged and no longer works._

* * *

[ I'll leave Lana's interior design plans up to her. Now, I remember Yuuta mentioning footprints being around here... ]

SHINJI: Let's see... Ah, footprints. Just like Yuuta said.

SHINJI: (More specifically, a single set of footprints is visible in the ground. Based on the position, I'd say they belong to Xin.)

MIO: We're not leaving any footprints now, so they must have been left while the ground was wet...

MIO: Judging by the direction, it looks like he came here from the east. I'll make a note of it.

BEATRICE: Ihihi… See, aren't you glad I didn't let anyone trample over my crime scene?

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Muddy Footprints (10) ::**

 _There is a single set of footprints that lead up to the fountain. However, they are quite shallow, so it's impossible to tell with any certainty who they belong to. Based on their position, it seems like they belong to Xin._

* * *

MIO: Hm, but it's strange… I mean, Xin was killed, right? If those footprints are his, shouldn't the culprit have left a set as well?

LANA: That just means they knew what they were doing! If I wanted to kill someone, I sure wouldn't leave footprints!

SHINJI: R-really… and how would you do that?

LANA: Ohoho… I'm not about ta give up my methods that easy. Believe you me, it takes a lot of preplanning.

LANA: But I'll give ya a freebie! Let's just say that those don't hafta be Xin's footprints.

SHINJI: (But then… where are Xin's footprints?)

SHINJI: (I guess it's possible, but it still leaves the question of how…)

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Missing Footprints? (11) ::**

 _There is only one set of footprints in the clearing. However… If they belong to Xin, then where are the culprit's footprints? And if they really belong to the culprit instead, then where are Xin's footprints?_

* * *

LANA: This is the kinda business acumen you need to make it in the financial sector! I'll hafta score a one-on-one interview with the culprit once we catch them!

MIO: Lana, we're talking murder here. I don't know what we should do about them, but giving them an interview is definitely sending the wrong message…

LANA: Hey, can't give up a once in a lifetime opportunity, ya know?

LANA: But once I'm done… I'll chuck 'em to the sharks myself. Count on it.

SHINJI: (H-her expression turned dark all of a sudden… that's a scary face…)

SHINJI: (She's been acting pretty normal, but I guess she's angry about what happened to Xin too.)

LANA: Hmmm… Anyway, my instincts are tellin' me I've seen everything I need. I'm outta here!

SHINJI: That does seem like everything… so I guess we should head out too. Are we still heading to Xin's room?

MIO: Yeah! We'll be passing by the wishing well clearing on our way through, too. I wonder if there's anything there?

* * *

 **Stay tuned for part 2, for the wishing well and the rest of Sector Earth. I just need to make final edits and clean it up, so it'll be out in the next day or two.**


	12. Zone 1: Magnitude 9 (Investigation)

**Catpocalypse - Haha yes, we have some rather bitchy students here. But the rest of the class will have to endure them for our amusement :p**

 **Anyway, on to part 2!**

* * *

 _ **Location: Wishing Well | Sector Earth**_

 _This area sure doesn't seem to be connected to the murder, but Toranosuke is here leaning over the well. With sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his shoulder is pressed up against the grate as he fishes around for something inside. It looks like… he's trying to pull something out?_

* * *

SHINJI: Toranosuke? What are you doing?

TORANOSUKE: Shut up and give me a minute.

TORANOSUKE: … Got it. Finally…

TORANOSUKE: Sheesh… talk about a pain in the ass.

SHINJI: (Huh, it looks like he's managed to pull something out of the well.)

SHINJI: So, what did you find?

TORANOSUKE: Swooping in to steal the results, huh? Hmph…

MIO: Ehehe… thanks for your hard work!

MIO: Hm, let's see. It looks like… a tarp?

TORANOSUKE: Congratulations, you have eyes. Do you want a gold star?

MIO: Cute. Anyway, it looks like it's wet… although I suppose that's not a huge surprise considering it was inside a well.

TORANOSUKE: Heh. I'd try again if I were you, Mio. You clearly haven't noticed, but the well has no water in it right now.

MIO: Wha… really?

SHINJI: That's strange… plus, wouldn't tarps be stored in the shed? What's one doing here?

TORANOSUKE: Who cares? Someone tried to get rid of it down there. Whatever the reason is, they didn't want it found.

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Tarp (12) ::**

 _Found inside the wishing well. It is rather wet, despite the fact the well has no water in it._

* * *

TORANOSUKE: Which means that whoever put it here was the culprit. Hm… should be easy enough.

TORANOSUKE: I'm taking this. See ya.

SHINJI: Hey, Toranosuke…!

[ Toranosuke leaves with the tarp in hand. Now he's taken the one item of interest, there's nothing of note here. ]

MIO: Independent as ever… well, let's leave it to Toranosuke. I'm sure he can tell us if there's anything unusual about it.

SHINJI: Alright. Let's keep moving.

* * *

 _ **Location: Xin's Room | Sector Earth**_

 _The door to Xin's room is already open when we get there. On the inside it's a bit of a mess; the sheets are crumpled and all the drawers are open, although it's not immediately clear if it started that way or if it was the handiwork of Masanori and Ayano, who are both busy searching the area._

* * *

AYANO: Ah, hello to both of you.

MASANORI: Yo! Come to help look?

SHINJI: Yeah, we...

SHINJI: … Wait a sec, how did you two get in here? I thought Xin's room would have been locked.

MASANORI: Locked? What do you mean?

MIO: Our doors lock automatically, right? In other words, you need your student ID to get in from the outside.

MIO: But the thing is, we already found Xin's ID near his body. If you didn't use it, then how did you get into his room?

AYANO: Ah… yes, that was because of me. It's true Xin's door was locked when I arrived here.

AYANO: I thought it would be important to investigate, so I asked Monokuma unlock it. I believe he said there was no master key, so he was forced to manually override the locking mechanism itself.

MIO: Ooh, I see. That makes sense.

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Xin's Room Locked (13) ::**

 _With Xin's student ID is broken, there's no way to unlock his door. It only became accessible once Monokuma overrode the lock during our investigation._

* * *

MIO: Anyway! Now that mystery's solved, I have a question for you, Ayano.

AYANO: For me…? What would you like to know?

MIO: Well, we're investigating a night time incident that happened last night.

MIO: There was a big crash outside our rooms. Did you hear it?

AYANO: I apologise, but I have no memory of what you're referring to. I'm afraid I must have slept through it…

AYANO: I live in a house very close to a train station, so I have become accustomed to loud noises at night.

MIO: Hm… okay, noted.

SHINJI: So, how are things going here?

MASANORI: To be honest, not so good… I've got no idea what I should be looking for, so I've just been searching randomly.

AYANO: Yes… I do admit that has largely been my strategy as well.

MASANORI: Oh yeah, but I found this!

SHINJI: Hm? A letter?

MASANORI: Yep! Written to Xin by yours truly!

MIO: Oh, that was nice of you. What's in it?

MASANORI: Ah ha ha… I'd rather keep it, if that's okay. It's kinda embarrassing now I read it again.

SHINJI: (You can't just say that and not show it! Damn it, now I'm curious.)

MASANORI: I wrote it last night, y'see… after I finished talking to you Shinji, I wanted to talk to Xin too. You know, make sure he's okay with bein' left behind and all.

MASANORI: I knocked on his door but he didn't answer… I thought he coulda been sleeping, so I figured I'd leave a note under his door instead.

MASANORI: But I'm a lot better at talkin' than writing… I was stuck working on that thing 'til around 1. It took me so long to finish someone else left Xin a letter before I did.

AYANO: Ah, someone else left Xin a note? Do you know who wrote it?

MASANORI: Nah, it was unmarked. I wouldn't've looked, anyway.

MIO: Sounds like he was pretty popular that night. I wonder who wrote it?

MASANORI: He's cute, maybe a secret admirer? Gyahaha!

MASANORI: Although now I mention it… I found my letter, but it looks like the other one's not here. I can't find it anywhere.

MIO: Hm… I wonder where could it be? Xin didn't have it on him, at least.

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Masanori's Testimony (14) ::**

 _Masanori put a letter under Xin's door at around 1 AM yesterday because he wasn't answering the door. According to him, somebody else left Xin a letter as well._

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Missing Letter (15) ::**

 _An unidentified person sent Xin a note, but it's gone missing. Could it have been written by the culprit…?_

* * *

MASANORI: Man… I really can't figure out this kind of stuff...

MASANORI: Well, I'll keep an eye out. If it's not here though, then I have no clue where it could be.

AYANO: I don't think it is likely to be here, at least. We have been searching for a while, but his room appears to be fairly empty.

[ It definitely seems that way… I guess the only real thing of interest is that notepad on his nightstand. ]

SHINJI: (Hey, this thing is identical to the one Mio uses.)

SHINJI: (If I remember right, she said she found hers in her room. That probably means I have one somewhere too.)

MIO: Say, do you think he wrote something on this? I think it's time for one of the tricks up my sleeve!

SHINJI: … Is this the sort of thing you do regularly as a journalist?

MIO: Please, I never get to do stuff like this. Why else would I be so enthusiastic about it?

MIO: Now it's sort of cliche, but hear me out. When you write something on a notepad, you leave an imprint of what you wrote on the page below it.

SHINJI: Mio… even I've heard of that one. You scribble with a pencil to reveal what was written on the torn off page.

MIO: Whatever Shinji, watch and learn! Like so…

SHINJI: (...! There's something coming up!)

MIO: Look, he totally wrote something! Chalk one up for detective work!

SHINJI: Let's see... "There's something very important I wish to discuss with you. At midnight, meet me halfway by the fountain."

SHINJI: … Is it just me, or does that sound kind of stiff?

MASANORI: Gyahaha, that sounds just like him! I always thought he seemed like the kinda guy to write really fancy.

SHINJI: (Heh, true… but more to the point, this means as he wrote a letter to someone as well as just receiving them. I wonder who it was?)

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Xin's Letter (16) ::**

 _Xin wrote a letter to someone, asking to meet them at midnight. The arranged meeting place was the fountain, the same place he was killed..._

* * *

SHINJI: So how do we figure out who this was addressed to? Do we ask around?

MIO: It's not going to be that easy, unfortunately. Considering he asked to meet at the fountain, Xin probably sent this to the culprit… and they definitely wouldn't admit they received it.

MIO: But anyway, let's put it aside for now. We haven't finished searching yet, so it could still turn up.

AYANO: Yes, we shouldn't give up hope just yet.

AYANO: You can leave this room to us. If it is still in here somewhere, we will find it.

MIO: Will do! In the meantime Shinji, let's head to the shed. Toranosuke found that tarp, so there could be something there.

SHINJI: Right. Let's move.

* * *

 _ **Location: Greenhouse & Shed | Sector Earth**_

 _At first glance, there's nothing particularly noteworthy; the greenhouse and shed both stand untouched. Kaede and Juzou are standing out in the open on opposite sides of the clearing, and the only thing that could be considered unusual is the fact that the shed door is currently wide open. Juzou catches sight of us as soon as we enter, and waves us over._

* * *

JUZOU: Hey hey! How's it goin'?

SHINJI: Hello, Juzou. How are you feeling?

JUZOU: Heh heh, I'm back in the game! Don't worry about me, okay? Juzou Hirayama always pulls through in the end!

SHINJI: That's good to hear… although to be honest, I was pretty shocked you of all people would be afraid of dead bodies.

JUZOU: Yeah, I know… Don't remind me…

MIO: I don't blame you, but isn't that sort of inconvenient for a pathologist?

JUZOU: Nope, s'all good! I could stare at blood and organs all day, it's just a proper body that's the problem. Knowing that they lived their own life up until that moment… I can't get it outta my head…

JUZOU: It's just… shit, how do people work in morgues and stuff? I hate corpses…

JUZOU: Why are we still talkin' about that, anyway! Ditch the gloomy expressions, would ya!?

MIO: Okay, changing subject! I guess I'll bring you up to speed on what's happening.

MIO: The short version is that we've decided to figure out the culprit ourselves, so everyone's searching for evidence.

JUZOU: No way… you're playin' high school detective without me!? I'll help, I want a slice of that pie too!

JUZOU: Oh, and you guys should talk to Kaede too. I think she's been looking around a little, maybe she knows something!

SHINJI: Alright, will do. Tell us if you find anything.

[ Juzou runs off, so we take his advice and approach Kaede. Her expression is even more serious than usual, and she seems to be pondering something. ]

MIO: Hello, Kaede. Something on your mind?

KAEDE: Oh, it's nothing. I was just thinking about Juzou.

SHINJI: Yeah, I feel bad for him… but he bounces back quickly. He seems fine now, so there's no need to worry.

KAEDE: What are you talking about? Why would I be concerned about him?

SHINJI: Eh? Well, he wasn't looking too good. Isn't it natural to worry about him?

KAEDE: I was going to… but my feelings were totally misplaced! Just look at him, don't you think he's way too upbeat right now?

KAEDE: Seriously, how can he act so carefree? He was about to pass out when we found Xin, but now he's smiling at a time like this.

KAEDE: Honestly… it's really getting on my nerves.

KAEDE: Anyway, what's going on? Did you guys decide what we should do about Xin?

SHINJI: We're trying to find out who the culprit is. It must have been one of us, so we're looking around for evidence.

KAEDE: Wha— Are you insane!? Isn't that something the police are supposed to do!?

SHINJI: We also can't contact the police, so it's all we've got. Unless you've got any better ideas?

KAEDE: … No, but…

KAEDE: *sigh* I guess I should have expected something weird like this.

KAEDE: Let's make one thing clear: I don't like this, okay? But if it's for Xin, I can't just ignore it… so I'll do my best to help.

KAEDE: So, um… what should I be doing?

MIO: Just look around! There could be evidence anywhere in the sector, we're looking for anything suspicious.

MIO: Oh, and pay special attention to the shed. We think the culprit took a tarp and possibly the weapon from there.

KAEDE: Eh? The culprit used the shed…?

KAEDE: If that's the case, then they did it during the night. No one went into the shed this morning.

MIO: Oh? You sound pretty sure of yourself. What makes you say that?

KAEDE: Because I used it. I guess you guys don't know, but I get up before everyone else does so I can spend time by myself.

KAEDE: I was planning to spend a while in the animal enclosures today, but I had to get a tarp so I wouldn't get rained on.

KAEDE: I put it back just before I went to breakfast, and I'm sure the shed hadn't been touched since I'd last been there.

SHINJI: So nothing had been touched… are you totally sure?

KAEDE: I'm totally certain! As the Ultimate Sniper, my eyes are second to none!

KAEDE: Even if you don't believe me personally, Shinji, you should at least trust in my talent. No one used the shed this morning, I'm certain of it!

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Kaede's Testimony (17) ::**

 _Early in the morning, Kaede took a tarp from the tool shed; by the time she returned it, just before she returned for breakfast, she is absolutely certain that the shed hadn't been used. The shed is one of the only places that a weapon could have been obtained, as well as the only place where tarps are stored. Does that mean the culprit moved during the night…?_

* * *

SHINJI: (Heh… looks like someone is starting to stake some pride in her talent.)

KAEDE: Um, is that everything? I'm going to get started on looking at the greenhouse now.

MIO: That's all! Tell us if you find anything!

SHINJI: You know, we've actually managed to cover a lot of ground. There's only the cafe left.

MIO: Hm… actually, do you mind doing it without me?

SHINJI: Ah? You're leaving?

MIO: Uh huh! Everyone was there this morning, so I don't think it'll be related. Plus, Riley asked us to investigate so I should report back to her.

MIO: After that I'll need time to organise my notes, so I'll go back to my room once I'm done. I'm sure you'll be fine by yourself, so tell me if you find anything, okay?

SHINJI: Alright. Let's meet up later.

* * *

 _ **Location: Cafe | Sector Earth**_

 _The cafe seems normal, as it's in the same state it was left in this morning. I've managed to find Genichi and Nichira, too; they're sitting at a table together and seem to be deep in conversation._

* * *

SHINJI: Hello, you two. What are you doing here?

NICHIRA: Suffering. I'm being used as a wall for Reverend Green here to bounce his ideas off.

GENICHI: Heh. I found Nichira slacking off here, so we've been discussing Xin's death. I find the central contradiction to this case very interesting.

SHINJI: Huh? What contradiction?

GENICHI: Ah, it hasn't been bothering you? Well, then let me ask you something.

GENICHI: Why do you suppose Xin was killed?

SHINJI: I… don't know. Honestly, I don't know why anyone would kill…

GENICHI: Committing a murder can be broken down into three parts; method, opportunity, and motive. The investigation will naturally reveal the first two, but it's difficult to imagine why anyone would want Xin dead.

GENICHI: This place is quite unusual, but everything we've actually done so far wouldn't be out of place in an ordinary orientation trip… so I don't think we can put it down to Sector Earth itself.

GENICHI: The only possible 'motive' event that I can think of is the escape machine and the fact that Xin was going to be left behind. The fact he was picked to be left behind could be significant.

NICHIRA: Yeah, except for the whole Xin dying part. We're still leaving, it's just now someone else has to take his place.

GENICHI: Yes, and that's where the contradiction lies. Xin was the one drawn in the lottery. I could imagine him killing someone because he didn't want to be left behind, but as the victim it doesn't make any sense.

SHINJI: (Well, I can see the logic there. But if there isn't a motive, then why was Xin killed…?)

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Culprit's Hidden Motive? (18) ::**

 _By nature, Xin should have been the only person motivated by Monokuma's lottery… so why was he killed? Could a murder really have been committed with no motive…? It could also be Monokuma, but he's adamant that this murder was committed by one of us…_

* * *

 **:: Evidence Received: Xin's Lottery Result (19) ::**

 _Yesterday, there was a 'lottery' to determine who would operate the escape machine. Xin was the one who drew the result, meaning he would be left behind._

* * *

GENICHI: Of course, there's also the bigger question of what Monokuma's goals are.

GENICHI: I'm not sure how much relevance it has to the case at hand, but I'm curious as to what he is planning.

SHINJI: His goals…? What do you mean?

GENICHI: When we were talking to him at the fountain, I thought what he said was very strange. Namely, his accusation that a 'traitor' was the culprit behind the murder.

GENICHI: If it's true, then that means the traitor could have targeted Xin for some reason. But if not… then that raises even more questions.

GENICHI: Of course, he was so vague about it that we can't even say who's being betrayed here. It could be him, one of us, Flower-chan, or any combination of the three and still fit the description.

NICHIRA: Well, it's obviously not going to be someone working with Monokuma. I think he's an idiot, but revealing his own hand would actually make zero sense.

GENICHI: But if it's not, then how would he come to know about the traitor's existence? There's probably a lot going on behind the scenes that we don't know about yet…

SHINJI: (Stuff… going on behind the scenes? What, were we trapped here by the Illuminati or something?)

NICHIRA: So then what, he lied?

SHINJI: That's possible, isn't it? It's not like he gave us any proof other than his word.

GENICHI: It's a good question, but it doesn't really matter either way right now. We have no way of identifying the traitor, so that information is useless to us.

NICHIRA: Great, so he's annoying _and_ stupid now. Why bring it up at all?

GENICHI: Yes, that's the main question. The only possibility I can think of is that he means to cause unrest.

NICHIRA: Unrest? What kind of dumbass reason is that?

GENICHI: Trust and morale are vital in warfare… and trust me, perception is worth far more than the truth. It doesn't even take a real threat to tear those things apart.

GENICHI: Suddenly announcing the presence of a traitor like he did… it's not information we can do anything with, don't you think? The only reason he'd bring up something like that is if he as an agenda behind it.

SHINJI: Er… but would Monokuma really do something like that? I mean, he's been helping us so far.

NICHIRA: He's less suspicious than Flower-chan, if you ask me. The entire situation is totally ridiculous, but I'm going with the bear over the flower.

NICHIRA: We were trapped in here until Monokuma came to save us, remember? And it was obviously Flower-chan who put us here, no matter how much she dodges the question.

GENICHI: That may be so, but don't forget that she's with Hope's Peak. Whatever their reasons, they wouldn't mean any harm by it.

GENICHI: Unfortunately, now she's been destroyed it seems unlikely that we'll find out her motives.

NICHIRA: So now we can't learn anything about that either. Great.

SHINJI: Sheesh… still, that's a lot of stuff. You really put a lot of thought into this.

GENICHI: Haha… well, what can I say? I might not look it, but I'm a naturally suspicious person.

NICHIRA: Which is why you like to sit around talking, blah blah. Can I go now?

* * *

Genichi didn't make any protest to Nichira leaving, so I took the opportunity to head out as well. I had finished looking around Sector Earth, but I needed to visit my room before the investigation wrapped up. There was something I wanted to pick up: Xin's orb.

It was still there on the nightstand when I arrived at my room, and I picked it up with even more care than usual. What was going through his head when he gave it to me…? I hadn't known him nearly long enough to get a proper grasp on his thought process, but I was glad I had it no matter what. On the surface it was still the same pretty gift, but now it had somehow become my only memento of Xin.

Xin… how did it come to solving a murder? I was definitely way out of my depth, but at the same time I didn't feel hopeless. Everyone was working together for Xin's sake. I'm sure he'd be happy to see that, at least, and I was already starting to feel like I could depend on them.

Plus… the Ultimates are the stars of the future, right? As long as we worked together, the truth didn't feel so far away.

* * *

 _"Time's up, —-—-—! —-—-—-—-—-—- about to begin!"_

 _"Head —-— observation deck at once, or —-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-!"_

* * *

Monokuma's new announcement crackled with static just like the one this morning, although I did hear the observation deck mentioned. It sounded like we were supposed to gather there, and it was probably a good idea to do as it asked.

With one last look around my room, I stashed Xin's orb in my pocket and headed out.

"Oh, there you are. How did the cafe go?" Mio asked, waving me down as I arrived at the elevator. There were about ten of us already present, so I joined her in waiting for the rest of the class to arrive.

"Nothing new. I just discussed the evidence with Genichi and Nichira," I replied, shaking my head. "Any last minute discussions we should be having?"

"Hmm… I think we've found everything we can," she said thoughtfully. "We found a lot of evidence in different places, so I think it'd be better to review the layout of Sector Earth instead."

"Sounds good," I nodded, taking the initiative. "To start, there's the Fountain clearing in the centre of the gardens. Asuka, Beatrice, and Asahara found Xin there."

"Right! If we use the fountain as our point of reference, there are four clearings surrounding it; the shed and greenhouse to the north, the wishing well to the east, the cafe to the south, and the animal enclosures to the west," Mio continued, ticking each location off on her fingers, "they're all connected to each other through paths, and you can exit the gardens via the four outer clearings."

She had effectively summed up the gardens, so I moved on to the other areas. "Our rooms are on the outer edge of Sector Earth. We're split by gender, with girls on the west edge and guys on the east."

"Which leaves the observation deck," she finished. "It's directly above the gardens, but the elevator to access it is on the north edge - which is where we are now."

"Alright, everyone's here!" Masanori called out. Toranosuke had just walked over, who seemed to be the final latecomer. "Monokuma said we should go up as a group, so let's get moving!"

Effortlessly taking charge, Masanori herded us into the elevator and it wasn't long before we were ascending. The elevator itself was rather cramped — which was to be expected, considering fifteen people were crammed inside — but the ride was mercifully short, and we were soon out on the observation deck.

Monokuma wasn't there to greet us, but I could see his tiny frame up ahead in the central area of the observation deck. Just as he had told us in the investigation, something had been set up there; it was difficult to say what exactly had been added, though, as whatever it was appeared to be made of glass. We automatically headed towards it, partially out of curiosity but mostly because there was nowhere else to go.

About a third of the distance between us had closed before I finally began to recognise shapes. It was a peculiar set up, consisting of a set of glass stands arranged shoulder-to-shoulder in a circle. There were sixteen in all - one for each student, and a sixteenth dedicated to Xin that bore a framed picture of him, much like one you'd see at a funeral. I assumed it was Monokuma's attempt at a makeshift memorial… although honestly, the blood-red cross splattered across his face was in rather bad taste.

Monokuma himself was off to one side, sitting in a raised throne that placed him about level with Masanori's head. A horizontal bar stuck out to one side, supporting an approximately Monokuma-size burlap sack tied to it with thick rope.

"Come, gather 'round!" He welcomed us in, motioning for us to keep moving forward. "It might be hard to see, but please go to the stand with your name on it."

With an air of slight confusion we did as he asked, quickly arranging ourselves in the places we had been assigned to. I found myself between Riley and Lana, while Juzou stood directly opposite me on the other side. Having all the spaces filled did little to draw attention away from the spot Xin should have occupied, but it did definitely feel like something was ready to start.

I turned expectantly to look at Monokuma, who spoke in the grandest tone his voice could muster. "Okay, ready? Let's begin the Class Trial!"

* * *

 **Trial time! I honestly didn't expect to write, what, 60k-ish words by this point? But it's here now, and I'll probably try and split it into 3 parts so it doesn't take forever to come out.**

 **Anyway, I'll see you then! Any guesses for who the culprit is?**

* * *

 **= Evidence Bullets =**

 ** _1 | Monokuma File A_  
** _::_ _Xin was killed by a bladed weapon. Time of death unknown._

 **2 | Sector Earth Rules** _ **  
*** No malicious destruction of property.  
_ _* No littering.  
_ _* Fountain is off-limits.  
_ _* Night time is from 10 PM - 7 AM. Observation deck will not operate during those hours._

 **3 | Culprit's Rule Breaking  
** _:: The culprit broke the Sector Earth rules, but escaped punishment._

 **4 | The Night Time Incident  
** _:: A flower pot fell during the night; Kaede, Mio, Riley, and Nichira came out to investigate. Caused by an owl._

 **5 | Released Animal  
** _:: An owl was released from the animal enclosures._

 **6 | Sprinkler System  
** _:: Sprinklers activate at 6 AM & 11 PM. Footprints will be left on the ground until the ground dries 30 minutes later._

 **7 | Rock Wall  
** _:: Rock climbing wall which connects the fountain clearing and the observation deck._

 **8 | The Unknown Weapon  
** _:: Weapon used by the culprit is inside the fountain. Unidentifiable and unretrievable._

 **9 | Xin's Student ID  
** _:: Used to unlock Xin's room. Broken._

 **10 | Muddy Footprints  
** _:: Footprints left in the fountain clearing. Leads up to Xin's body._

 **11 | Missing Footprints?  
** _:: Killer and victim would ordinarily leave two sets of footprints. But there is only one..._

 **12 | Tarp  
** _:: Tarp found inside the wishing well. Wet, despite no water in the well._

 **13 | Xin's Room Locked  
** _:: Xin's room was inaccessible until Monokuma opened it during the investigation._

 **14 | Masanori's Testimony  
** _:: Masanori left a letter under Xin's door at 1 AM. He noticed there was another note there._

 **15 | Missing Letter  
** _:: The letter Masanori saw is gone. Sender is unknown._

 **16 | Xin's Letter  
** _:: Xin wrote to someone, asking to meet them at 12 AM by the fountain._

 **17 | Kaede's Testimony** _ **  
**:: Kaede used the shed early in the morning. According to her, nothing was moved during that period up until the body was discovered._

 **18 | Culprit's Hidden Motive?  
** _:: No apparent motive for the culprit...?_

 **19 | Xin's Lottery Result  
** _:: Xin was chosen to be left behind while everyone else leaves Sector Earth._


	13. Zone 1: Class Trial: Begin!

**Lyrica Lilac - Lots of speculation there... I like it :D**

 **Jibster - All aboard the SYOC train! It's flattering to hear I've inspired you... even though I kinda missed it at the time. I see you've already a fair way in, but good luck with your story!**

 **So I've been busy with writing other things, and I almost forgot how much of a pain in the ass these trials are, but I finally managed to get this done. Things have gone somewhat (ok, very) slow, but I want to put it out there that I still have every intention of completing this story. It might take a while, but it'll definitely happen! But I suppose if you're reading, you're probably used to my erratic updates anyway...**

 **Anyway, in case you've forgotten details about this trial/story, there is an evidence list at the end of the previous chapter, and there are links on my profile for images of the characters, and the Sector Earth map.**

* * *

KAEDE: We're beginning a what? Class... trial?

MONOKUMA: Not a literal trial. Just our own special version of one. Think of it like a classroom discussion, if you'd prefer.

MONOKUMA: In essence, it's a place for you all to talk about the case amongst yourselves. If you work together, I'm sure you can figure out who killed poor Xin!

MONOKUMA: Let's aim high, shall we? You all have to come to a unanimous agreement over who the culprit is!

MIO: Hm... Team discussion... Honestly, it sounds like it could work.

MIO: I don't know about you guys, but I'd like to give it a try.

JUZOU: Hey, I'm game. If no one's got problems, then let's get into it!

NICHIRA: Wait. Before we start, I'm curious about something. What's in the bag, Monokuma?

MONOKUMA: Oho, I was wondering if you'd notice that. To tell the truth, it's actually a little surprise for you.

MONOKUMA: Now you've brought it up, I'll open it right now! Ta da~!

SHINJI: ...!

SHINJI: F... Flower-chan?!

FLOWER-CHAN: ...

SHINJI: (She doesn't look too happy to be there... and, uh, she's tied up.)

AYANO: Flower-chan? Didn't Asuka kill you?

AYANO: ... Also, is there a reason why you are bound with rope?

FLOWER-CHAN: I've been taken prisoner! Ooh, how horrible...!

MONOKUMA: Upupu, don't listen to her! The truth is... She's actually into being tied up!

MONOKUMA: Ooh, how inappropriate...! I'm blushing just thinking about it!

KAEDE: T-that's...

MASANORI: W-Well, I guess that's cool. Everybody's got their thing, huh?

MASANORI: I just didn't realise flowers could be into... that kinda stuff...

FLOWER-CHAN: N-No, it's really not like that! Please don't look so scandalised!

LANA: Why deny it? You've been caught out now!

LANA: Have some pride! If y'ask me nicely, I bet I could even hook you up with some contacts!

FLOWER-CHAN: Gyaa, I don't need contacts! ... Wait, what am I saying?!

FLOWER-CHAN: Don't let me distract you! Please focus on finding out who the culprit is!

YUUTA: ... That's probably a good idea. I think the faster we leave that conversation behind, the better.

MASANORI: Right. In that case... where should we start?

BEATRICE: Ihihi! I can't believe you're really planning on discussing this nonsense!

BEATRICE: The culprit is completely obvious. Don't tell me you haven't figured it out!

KAEDE: What...?! You already know who it is?!

RILEY: Damn, that was really fast! That Ultimate Genius title sure isn't just for show!

JUZOU: Hey, don't keep us waiting! Who is it?!

BEATRICE: Well, juuust because you begged for it… Alright, listen up! This is the classic murder mystery.

BEATRICE: The victim, seemingly chosen at random...

BEATRICE: The killer, desperate and hiding a secret motive...

BEATRICE: Their seemingly innocent demeanour making the reveal all the more shocking!

BEATRICE: That's right, you morons! The culprit's identity...

BEATRICE: It was you! — **[Asahara Takumi]** —!

ASAHARA: Aa... A-aaaaaaahhhh!

SHINJI: What... What the hell!?

FLOWER-CHAN: Kyaaaaaaaaa! The reveal! Has the trial ended before it started?!

RILEY: Eeeyaaaa! I had no idea! We were being fooled all along?!

ASAHARA: W-W-What?! W-Why me?!

BEATRICE: See? I told you so. What a suspicious reaction.

LANA: Ah ha! I see! Excellent work!

LANA: I'm onto ya, you criminal! You can't hide anything from me!

ASAHARA: N-No...! Please...! I... really didn't—!

SHINJI: Lana, what are you saying? She just accused him out of nowhere!

MASANORI: Hold on, what the hell's goin' on... How was it Asahara?

MASANORI: It doesn't make sense... I think...

JUZOU: Y-Yeah... Does he have a motive?

BEATRICE: Like I would know. I just said it was a secret motive!

GENICHI: Is this really necessary? We're not going to accept such a frivolous accusation without evidence, Beatrice.

BEATRICE: Who cares about evidence? If you were even half as intelligent as me, you wouldn't need any.

SHINJI: ...

ASAHARA: ...

FLOWER-CHAN: ...

...

SHINJI: You... you did look at the evidence list, right?

BEATRICE: Huh? Are you joking? Of course not!

SHINJI: W-What? Why not?

BEATRICE: It's beneath me. That's what you peons are for.

BEATRICE: Besides, if I knew any of the evidence, then there'd be nothing for you idiots to discuss!

JUZOU: Argh, are you serious... I got worked up for nothing...

JUZOU: You could've at least looked at the Monokuma File, y'know!

BEATRICE: Monokuma File? That thing he sent to our IDs?

BEATRICE: ...

BEATRICE: ...

BEATRICE: ...

BEATRICE: What is this crap?! This is the most incomplete autopsy report I've ever read!

MONOKUMA: H-Hey, wait a second! I worked hard on that!

BEATRICE: And this is the best you could do? Ihihihi! You really are useless!

MONOKUMA: Says the person who made the most inaccurate accusation on record!

BEATRICE: Grr... Eat it, you stupid bear! Who asked you?!

YUUTA: ... So basically, what I'm getting from this is that it's not Asahara...

KAEDE: Um... Just so you guys know, I would never agree to holding this trial thing under normal circumstances.

KAEDE: But, well... Right now, I want to pretend that entire conversation didn't happen, so let's get started.

SHINJI: Well, if we're looking for a starting point...

SHINJI: There actually was something that Beatrice brought up that I thought was important. Surprisingly enough.

BEATRICE: Pfft, don't give me that attitude. I'm the Ultimate Genius, everything I say is important!

BEATRICE: I wanna hear it! Spit it out!

SHINJI: I'm talking about the — **[Culprit's Hidden Motive]** —. It was one of the many things that she totally skipped over in her explanation, but it does raise a point.

SHINJI: Honestly, it's a pretty big contradiction. Considering our situation, it doesn't make sense for the culprit to commit murder at all.

MASANORI: Because everyone except Xin was going to escape, right? Hell, for the rest of us, it was motive to not commit murder.

MASANORI: I mean, yeah, we'd have to leave him behind, but it's not like killing someone was a better option!

TORANOSUKE: Except it was, evidently...

AYANO: I must confess I am a little confused. If that is truly the case, then why was Xin killed?

LANA: Intriguing... Well! Times like this, you hafta think like a culprit!

LANA: Thinking hats on. Hrmmm... what could ya gain by killing Xin?

NICHIRA: Well, I think the culprit's actions make no sense.

JUZOU: Yeah, no shit. That's kinda the problem here!

NICHIRA: I wasn't finished, so shut it.

NICHIRA: If you hit a wall, look at it from another angle. This is basic research methodology here.

ASAHARA: Another angle...? I, um... I don't really understand...

NICHIRA: I'll put it another way. It's true that nobody had a motive to murder Xin, so instead of asking "Why didn't the culprit have a motive?", try something like "Who could have had a motive?"

NICHIRA: Think about it, and what do you get? There's only one answer.

SHINJI: (Yeah, I think I get it...)

SHINJI: If the culprit didn't have a motive, then... the victim is the only other person who could have had one. There's no one else involved in the murder itself.

SHINJI: (Aaand Riley is giving me a blank look.)

NICHIRA: Bingo. You explain it.

SHINJI: Yeah, alright... Well, the only thing that makes sense is if the motive is based around yesterday's lottery.

SHINJI: More specifically, — **[Xin's Lottery Result]** —. If you think about what the lottery means, Xin was the only one who should have been motivated by it.

SHINJI: He was the one who had his name drawn, which meant that he was going to be left behind while the rest of us escaped Sector Earth. It's pretty easy to imagine him not wanting to be left behind.

SHINJI: So if he tried to stop someone from leaving... Even though he was the one who ended up dead, it's possible he could have been the attacker.

KAEDE: Are you saying... Xin tried to kill someone else?!

NICHIRA: Yup. I've got other proof, too.

NICHIRA: Remember — **[Xin's Letter]** —?

* * *

 _"There's something very important I wish to discuss with you. At midnight, meet me halfway by the fountain."_

* * *

LANA: Callin' someone out at midnight's real hush-hush, that's for sure. You got lotsa time to stash a body, so it's a good time to commit murder!

SHINJI: (L-Lana... I mean, it makes sense, but that sounds really scary coming from you...)

KAEDE: But if Xin attacked someone, then what should we do? If it was self-defence... isn't it justified?

MONOKUMA: Oho, don't worry about punishment just yet. I suggest you concentrate on finding who killed poor Xin.

MIO: Yeah, I agree with that. No matter what the circumstances are, we can't just excuse their actions, especially not if we haven't even discovered what happened.

SHINJI: Right. Once we've found the culprit, we can ask them why ourselves.

KAEDE: A... Alright. Then let's keep going.

MASANORI: Well, while we're on the subject of the motive, I'm not convinced it's Xin. No way would he try to kill someone.

MASANORI: I mean, you guys talked to him too, right? He's not that kind of person...

YUUTA: Agreed. Besides, if Xin attacked whoever killed him with a blade, then it'd be hard to come out of that without getting cut.

YUUTA: But it doesn't look like anyone here is injured...

NICHIRA: Well, he was scrawny? Don't look at me. Look at the evidence and that's what you get.

SHINJI: (Honestly, it does seem far fetched. But what other explanations are there?)

GENICHI: It is strange... but more importantly, it's hard to make a conclusion. We don't have enough to know for sure whether Xin attacked the culprit or not.

GENICHI: In fact, it might be best to leave the point aside entirely for now. As it is, we're just speculating right now.

MASANORI: Hah! False start, eh?

MASANORI: Guess we better keep on truckin' and start over. What should we discuss now?

MIO: How about the details of the murder? Let's lay the groundwork of the case down first.

MIO: We need as much information as we can get, so I'd like to try and figure out more about — **[The Unknown Weapon]** —.

YUUTA: Sounds like a good place to start. What do we know about it so far?

ASAHARA: W-Well... — **[Monokuma File A]** — mentions it. It says Xin was killed with a bladed weapon...

YUUTA: Right. So what was it, and where did it come from?

MIO: It shouldn't be too hard to narrow down. Like I've been saying, this is a closed circle murder, so we can ignore the possibility of obtaining the weapon from outside Sector Earth.

MIO: That leaves us with the six main locations in Sector Earth: the fountain, the wishing well, the cafe, the animal enclosures, the greenhouse, and the shed.

AYANO: Many of those locations do not have any storage facilities, correct? If that's the case, we can eliminate all but the cafe and the shed.

RILEY: Oh, oh! I've figured it out! I'll take it from there!

RILEY: I took another look at the — **[Sector Earth Rules]** —! Look at rule #5, it says the cafe is closed during the night!

* * *

 _#5: Night time occurs between 10:00 PM and 7:00 AM. During this period, the cafe is locked and the observation deck elevator will not run. However, there is no curfew, so you may move around Sector Earth whenever you wish!_

* * *

RILEY: If the culprit couldn't use the cafe, then that means they took the weapon from the shed!

JUZOU: Ey, not bad! This discussion thingy's actually workin' pretty well!

YUUTA: If I remember right, — **[Kaede's Testimony]** — can build on that too. She said that no one used the shed in the morning.

KAEDE: Ah, yes. So then, the culprit took the weapon sometime during the night?

GENICHI: That's right. Of course, it's not overly important as long as we don't know when Xin was killed...

RILEY: Eh? Wait, we don't know when Xin died!?

AYANO: Yes, that does appear to be the case. The time of death in — **[Monokuma File A]** — is listed as unknown.

RILEY: Ooh... Well, we found him in the morning, right? I just kinda assumed he was killed at night.

MASANORI: I mean, can we tell? That woulda been my guess too...

MIO: There's no need to guess, you know. At times like this we should look at the evidence to see if it can give us the answer.

SHINJI: (I'll assume she's saying that because we do have that kind of information.)

SHINJI: (Hm... Evidence that can tell us when Xin died...)

YUUTA: Ah... the — **[Muddy Footprints]** —. They were left by Xin, right?

MIO: Correct! Good one, Yuuta!

JUZOU: Huh? How do the footprints help? We don't know when they were made, do we?

MIO: We do! Well, sort of. Think back to what the — **[Sprinkler System]** — tells us.

JUZOU: Wha— You have to look at other evidence too?! No fair!

MIO: Of course! Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it eventually.

MIO: Anyway, according to how the sprinklers work, you only leave footprints in the gardens when the ground is wet—in other words, after the sprinklers go off.

MIO: More specifically, the sprinklers turn on automatically twice a day, which means the ground is wet for two 30 minutes periods every day: — **[6:00-6:30 AM and 11:00-11:30 PM]** —.

AYANO: And because Xin left footprints, they must have been left while the ground was wet. Is that correct?

MIO: Exactly! Since we all saw Xin alive during the day yesterday, that leaves two possibilities: 11:00 PM last night, or 6:00 AM this morning.

SHINJI: So those are the only two options, huh...

SHINJI: But those two times are 7 hours apart. Can we say which one it was?

KAEDE: It would be the earlier one, wouldn't it? Don't murders and stuff usually happen at night?

MIO: I think that's the natural assumption, but we can't tell from just the footprints, unfortunately.

MIO: I don't know how much the sprinklers degrade footprints already in the ground, but it probably takes more than one round of water to erase them completely...

LANA: Tut tut... All this talkin' about the time, when there's a much bigger question here!

MASANORI: Ah... You really think so? The time of the murder sounds pretty important to me.

LANA: 'Course! Don't you wanna know how the culprit killed Xin?

LANA: There's a mystery, y'see. And it's a big one, no matter what time he was killed.

RILEY: Okay, I'll bite! What is it?

LANA: It's a case of — **[Missing Footprints]** —. The ground was wet when Xin was killed, so he left footprints, yeah?

LANA: Hm, but isn't it strange? Where's the footprints of the guy who killed him?

JUZOU: Huh? Oh yeah, that is weird...

AYANO: If I may, I think there is one possible solution.

AYANO: Please recall the — **[Culprit's Rule Breaking]** —. Before the investigation began, there was something of interest Monokuma said.

* * *

 _"I can't tell you_ that _... but I have a little insider knowledge, you see. I know the culprit broke the Sector Earth rules, but they had special permission to avoid punishment," Monokuma explained patiently._

* * *

AYANO: What he said, and the problem of the missing footprints both make sense if the 'culprit' is actually Xin himself.

AYANO: In that scenario, he would have been granted exemption from punishment because he was already dead.

RILEY: W-What the hell!? Are you saying he killed himself!?

MIO: Ayano's right, it fits with those parts of the puzzle.

MIO: I don't know why he would, but... it's definitely a possibility...

TORANOSUKE: No. Impossible.

AYANO: Oh... Is that so?

TORANOSUKE: It's doesn't work because of the — **[Tarp]** —. As I'm sure you remember, I found it in the well.

TORANOSUKE: If Xin really killed himself, then how did it end up there? He couldn't have moved it if he was dead, and it didn't move by itself.

YUUTA: But it wasn't even found at the scene. Couldn't it be unrelated to his death?

TORANOSUKE: Again, that's impossible. Putting the tarp in the well is against the rules, so it must have been dumped there by the culprit.

KAEDE: Isn't that a possibility, though? If Xin had special permission, he could have put the tarp there himself before he died.

TORANOSUKE: Not likely. No one would just do it randomly, so no matter who the culprit was, they must have done it for a reason.

GENICHI: Yes... unfortunately, I think I have to agree with Toranosuke here.

GENICHI: In a lot of ways, suicide would be preferable to Xin being killed by one of us, but that explanation leaves too many loose ends.

GENICHI: For example, the — **[Missing Letter]** —. We didn't find it on Xin, so it would be difficult to explain where it disappeared to if he was the culprit.

AYANO: Hmm, you both make excellent points. In that case, I concede.

NICHIRA: That's all well and good, but that brings us right back to the problem of how the culprit didn't leave footprints.

LANA: Ohoho! Don't worry, I've come up with my own method. I'll even get in on this "charity" business and tell you all free of charge!

LANA: If I were the killer, see, I'd just wait for the ground to dry! If the ground's not wet, no footprints!

ASAHARA: The culprit... waited for the ground to dry?

LANA: That's what I said, isn't it?

LANA: It's just like that — **[Sprinkler System]** — says! You can sit on the fountain, all you hafta do is wait 'til the ground dries!

KAEDE: Wait a second... Are you saying the culprit killed Xin and then waited half an hour for the ground to dry?!

KAEDE: That's insane! What if someone came and saw you?!

LANA: Ya hide at the back behind the sculpture, silly! If ya leave the body as a distraction, it's dark, so you can sneak off if ya really have to.

LANA: Bonus if someone else sees the body and leaves footprints, too. Then the heat's off you and onto the other guy!

SHINJI: That... actually sounds kind of reasonable. You're good at this pretending to be a culprit thing, Lana.

SHINJI: (A little too good. That whole method is frighteningly well thought through...)

LANA: Ohoho. You sure know how to butter me up!

MASANORI: So does that cover how the culprit did it, then? They waited for the ground dry in the dark, and then just left...

BEATRICE: Not so fast!

BEATRICE: I see you idiots have missed something critical. If one of you begs for it, then maybe I'll consider telling you!

TORANOSUKE: I think we all know there's no chance in hell anyone's doing that. Hurry up and get to the point already.

BEATRICE: Ihihi, I'll take that too. You're obviously desperate to hear my supreme wisdom.

BEATRICE: Here it is! You all forgot to check Xin's body!

JUZOU: We forgot?! That was _your_ job!

BEATRICE: No thanks to you, you waste of space!

RILEY: Uh, I think I missed something. What's wrong with Xin's body?

BEATRICE: You're all too stupid to have checked, so listen up! Xin's body is totally dry!

YUUTA: What are you on about now? Xin was half in the fountain...

BEATRICE: Obviously that doesn't count. Why would I bother including such a trivial detail in my grand reveal?

BEATRICE: I'm talking about the problem with the 11:00 PM theory. Can you figure it out yourselves, or do I need to spell it out for you? I-T M-E-A-N-S—

NICHIRA: I get it, so spare me. If he was at the fountain during the night, then he should've gotten wet when the sprinklers went off in the morning.

NICHIRA: Unless, of course, someone invented something that could block water spray. Like, I don't know... maybe a — **[Tarp]** —?

ASAHARA: B-But… Um… When we found Xin's body, the tarp wasn't there…

TORANOSUKE: Of course it wasn't. We already know the culprit must have moved it to the well.

RILEY: Wait, so you're saying the tarp is wet because the culprit came back to get it after the 6:00 AM sprinklers? Isn't that really risky?

LANA: They had to because they wanted to hide the time of death, obviously! They made it a mystery, why else have we been talkin' about it all this time?

BEATRICE: What kind of theory is that? The tarp was in the well, you can't say that it was used during the 6:00 AM sprinklers just because it's wet. There's water in the fountain too!

GENICHI: Still, that explanation accounts for everything. Just because it's not proven, doesn't mean you can just ignore it as a possibility.

GENICHI: I'm leaning towards it, myself. It's a reasonable theory for the lack of footprints left by the culprit.

BEATRICE: That's circular logic! The entire 11:00 PM theory banks on the fact that he died during the night, which you have 0 definitive proof for!

BEATRICE: In fact, that whole explanation is a load of crap! Xin obviously died in the morning!

GENICHI: That's hardly a counterargument, Beatrice. Or do you have a better explanation?

BEATRICE: I'm the Ultimate Genius, I'm never wrong! If you think you can prove it, then bring it!

* * *

There was an uneasy feeling settling in my gut as we continued to talk about the time of Xin's death. The class trial had started civil enough, but the conversation was becoming more and more heated the longer we went on. I could feel a tension form in the air around us, as things began to escalate from a discussion into an argument.

As a class, we were solidly divided into 2 camps; some of us, spearheaded by Genichi and Lana, were arguing that Xin was killed last night at 11:00 PM, while Beatrice and a few others insisted that he died later at 6:00 AM. I wasn't sure which was right, so I stayed on the sidelines and did my best to keep an open mind. I interjected whenever I could, but my opinion swung back and forth as I listened to the points the others were making.

Evidence was being thrown back and forth rapidly. — **[Masanori's Testimony]** — showed that Xin didn't answer the door at 1:00 AM, which was after the 11:00 PM sprinklers. If he didn't answer, it could mean that he was dead at the time.

But no, that didn't prove anything. He could have just been asleep, which would have been perfectly natural at that time of night.

Only that he probably wouldn't be asleep, because of — **[Xin's Letter]** —. He had arranged to meet somebody at midnight, which was the perfect time for the murder to occur.

But of course, _that_ was just more evidence that he died at 6:00 AM. If he had gone to the meeting at 12:00 AM, the ground would have dried up 30 minutes beforehand, meaning that the window of time for the murder to have occurred at night had already passed. If Xin had been the one who initiated the attack he could have arrived early to the fountain in preparation.

Except we had no evidence that he even went to the midnight meeting: there was nothing to say he hadn't died at 11:00 PM. Besides, if Xin was killed in the morning, then why had he come out? His arranged meeting—which had passed six hours ago—was the only reason he had to leave his room at all.

It felt like a never ending stream of counterarguments upon counterarguments. Beatrice and Nichira were doing their usual sniping at people, only further adding fuel to the fire. Kaede and Toranosuke were already talking in far harsher tones than they usually did, and I could see even the calmer students like Lana and Yuuta were starting to look frustrated.

All the while, our two teachers watched on from the sidelines. Flower-chan seemed cowed into silence by the arguing as it rose to a clamour, but the black-and-white bear didn't seem silent for the same reasons. As a toy, it was impossible to read emotions into his face, but he seemed content to simply sit back and watch as we slowly descended into chaos.

When the shouting started, that was my breaking point. I slammed my fists down onto my stand, making a loud enough bang to silence the conversation. Everyone looked at me—I got primarily looks of confusion, but Nichira glared at me for interrupting her. Ignoring it, I started to speak with as much authority as I could muster.

* * *

 **Anyway, that's part 1 finished! If you care, give me your opinion on the use of minigames in the trials. Obviously, I have been trying out not using them for this trial, but it would be nice to know if people prefer one way or the other.** **I'm on the fence about it, personally (which is why I ask)—it's not strictly necessary because this is fanfiction and therefore has no actual gameplay, but on the other hand I do quite like it stylistically, and I feel like it does help break up the dialogue somewhat.**


	14. Zone 1: Class trial: Grounded

SHINJI: Pull yourselves together! Guys, we're just going in circles. This is pointless.

SHINJI: We can talk about possibilities all day, but we need to prove _something_ before we can go any further.

MASANORI: Yeah... you're right. Things are really gettin' out of hand.

MASANORI: Let's take a step back. Breathe in and out...

NICHIRA: Save it for yoga class, buster.

SHINJI: Nichira!

NICHIRA: Guh... Fine. You're right, this isn't going anywhere. So now what?

ASAHARA: W-Well, we're split into two right now. Maybe we should find something we can agree on...

GENICHI: Well... If there's one thing I'm willing to concede, it's that it would be easier to prove if he was killed in the morning.

GENICHI: If Xin was confirmed to be alive after 11:30 PM, then that would definitively prove he was killed at 6:00 AM.

KAEDE: But how do we prove that? I'm pretty sure we've established by now that no one saw him during the night.

MIO: Well, maybe this is a long shot, but maybe **—[The Night Time Incident]—** has something to do with it?

TORANOSUKE: "Night Time Incident"...?

RILEY: Arrgh! How does everyone not know about this!?

TORANOSUKE: You'll notice that the evidence doesn't exactly make it sound interesting. Or relevant. I didn't read it.

RILEY: Ugh. Well, one of the hanging flower pots outside the girls' rooms was knocked down and broke.

RILEY: Go on, look horrified! I could have died!

TORANOSUKE: Whatever you say.

TORANOSUKE: Did you find out the cause? Was it the culprit or what?

NICHIRA: It was an owl. One of the gates was open for some reason.

RILEY: Right, but the owl didn't escape itself! The door was opened by someone!

YUUTA: Huh? Hey, hold on a second. If they happened close together...

SHINJI: Someone had to be at the animal enclosures at 12:30 AM to release the owl!

YUUTA: You don't think it could have been...

SHINJI: Well, we DO think he was out at night. It's a possibility, isn't it?

KAEDE: Can we prove who it was? At that time of night it could have been anyone...

KAEDE: ...

KAEDE: Wait, didn't we send Asuka to check it out? Maybe she saw someone?

MIO: I don't know... Wouldn't she have mentioned it at the time if she saw someone?

SHINJI: We may as well ask to be sure. It can't hurt to try.

SHINJI: Asuka! Do you know who released the owl last night?

ASUKA: Yes. It was Xin.

MIO: ...

MIO: What the—!? Are you kidding me!?

YUUTA: You can't be serious! Asuka had the answer all along?!

YUUTA: That's... Extremely significant. Did you really see him?

ASUKA: Yes. He was at the enclosures when I arrived.

MIO: The incident occurred at around 12:30 AM. That means Xin was alive an hour after the 11:00 sprinklers...!

JUZOU: What the fuuuuuck! Did we just waste our time arguing that shit!?

JUZOU: God damn it, Asuka! Why didn't you say anything?!

ASUKA: You did not ask. If you wish to know certain details, please be more specific next time!

ASUKA: Furthermore, he ordered me to keep his presence a secret. A true servant obeys all orders. They are not voided, even if my master is deceased.

KAEDE: So we argued for nothing? I feel sort of empty...

KAEDE: Agh! Now I'm in an even worse mood for nothing!

GENICHI: Well, I guess that's that. It seems we were wrong. Xin was killed at 6:00 AM.

BEATRICE: Huh? You're just going to accept it?

GENICHI: No point getting defensive about it. Somebody had to be wrong, after all.

MASANORI: Aw, don't sweat it. It'll be nice havin' everyone on the same side again, hahaha...

MIO: I guess now that's sorted, we should get back to discussing the method. Where does that leave us?

KAEDE: Lana's theory was that the culprit stayed at the fountain with Xin until the ground dried.

KAEDE: To be honest, it still sounds ridiculous to me. It'd be even worse than waiting in the dark—if someone came across Xin, they'd see you right away.

GENICHI: That may be true... but what if there was a way to escape the fountain area entirely?

AYANO: Without leaving footprints? How is that possible?

GENICHI: Now that I think about it, you don't have to use the ground to leave... in fact, I saw Shinji, Lana, and Mio using it earlier.

JUZOU: Aha! The **—[Rock Wall]—**! You can climb up to the observation deck and take the elevator down!

JUZOU: Yikes... Talk about sneaky.

NICHIRA: Hold on. There's something wrong with that theory.

NICHIRA: Xin was killed around 6:00 AM. But according to the **—[Sector Earth Rules]—** , it's still considered night for another hour.

RILEY: The rule even says the elevator doesn't work during the night! By the time it started working, the ground would have long dried...

RILEY: So then the culprit can't have escaped up there after all? They wouldn't have gone to hide there either, seeing as the floor is glass and all.

LANA: What're you on about? There's definitely a place to hide up there.

RILEY: Huh? But how? That can't be possible, can it?

LANA: Ohoho, but I've forgotten it all of a sudden… Maybe a little cash would jog my memory...

MIO: Lana! Come on, this is serious.

LANA: Tch, fine, fine. If it were me, I'd just hop right into the elevator.

KAEDE: The elevator? But didn't we just agree it wasn't working?

LANA: Sure, but it's still a metal box. No one'd see ya for sure, and no one can call it down either.

LANA: Hop back out when the ground is dry, or ride it back down at 7 sharp!

KAEDE: Ugh... Please don't tell me we have to prove which one the culprit did...

YUUTA: It doesn't matter. Taking the elevator, or climbing back down... Both are risky in that it's suspicious if anyone sees you.

YUUTA: I'd personally wager that they climbed back down the wall. If they retrieved the tarp too, then they had to return to Xin anyway.

MASANORI: Makes sense. But there's something else I've been wondering...

MASANORI: We know that the culprit could escape without leaving footprints, but we never figured out whether the ones that were left on the ground belonged to them or Xin, did we?

YUUTA: Yes... It's something worth considering.

BEATRICE: Pff! Easy. The culprit wanted to kill Xin, so obviously they would have arrived first.

BEATRICE: They didn't leave footprints because they would have come to the fountain when the ground was dry.

JUZOU: So then... the footprints are Xin arriving past 6:00 AM?

BEATRICE: Ihihihi... Congratulations, you have an IQ higher than 60.

BEATRICE: The **—[Tarp]—** was brought by the culprit too, by the way. That way, they can keep themselves dry when the sprinklers went off.

MASANORI: I guess I'm just spitballing here, but they could have used the tarp to block any blood spatter too.

JUZOU: Uh, but the tarp didn't have any blood on it...

SHINJI: They probably washed it off in the fountain. Xin's blood was already mixing into it so it would blend right in.

SHINJI: It's against the rules, but considering **—[The Culprit's Rule Breaking]—** they dumped the tarp into the wishing well so they were planning to break the rules anyway.

TORANOSUKE: So the culprit definitely used the tarp, then.

TORANOSUKE: Heh... hahaha...

TORANOSUKE: Thanks for proving that. That just confirms what I thought.

YUUTA: Toranosuke...?

TORANOSUKE: I know who the culprit is.

TORANOSUKE: Kaede. It was you, wasn't it?

KAEDE: Wha, me? Are you serious?

MASANORI: That's right... I'd almost forgotten the culprit is somebody here.

JUZOU: But... why Kaede?

TORANOSUKE: Think back on **—[Xin's letter]—**. "Meet me halfway."

TORANOSUKE: Why would he use a phrase like that?

TORANOSUKE: To me, that means the person he's meeting starts on the other side of Sector Earth—or in other words, the girls' dorm.

NICHIRA: Other than Asuka, whoever received that letter would have been the last person to meet him... and likely the last person to see him alive.

TORANOSUKE: Good, you're following. We also know that the culprit took a tarp from the shed.

TORANOSUKE: The evidence points us directly to someone who did so.

SHINJI: In **—[Kaede's Testimony]—**... she admitted she took one.

SHINJI: But why would she mention that if she was the culprit? Isn't that just giving herself away?

TORANOSUKE: She was trying to make it look like the murder occurred during the night. We just spent half this discussion arguing about that.

TORANOSUKE: That sounds like motive to try and misdirect us.

KAEDE: No, I just... I was visiting the animal enclosures!

MIO: Yes, but you said yourself that you went to the shed. That's where the weapon must have come from.

MASANORI: No way... so then it was her...?

KAEDE: I... I...

SHINJI: (C'mon, Kaede... Say something...)


	15. Zone 1: Class Trial: Earthbound

**taako - yes, I remember you! It's good to see some people haven't forgotten about this story lol**

 **hirowriter - it was worded rather ambiguously now i look at it, but Asuka's not mentioning Xin was more of him asking her to leave him out of her report to Nichira and the others rather than concealing his presence entirely. Not a huge difference in practice, but to my mind I see it as not a direct conflict of orders.**

* * *

"How could you think something like that?!" Kaede's voice cracked, and it sounded like she was trying to whisper it and scream it at the same time. She was shaking, and there were tears in her eyes, but she wiped them away with her sleeve angrily.

"I couldn't kill someone. I didn't want this... I just want to go home..."

Toranosuke watched her impassively. It was clear he wasn't buying her outburst.

I wanted to comfort her myself, but... I couldn't bring myself to. What if she _did_ kill Xin? Could she just be acting?

No, that was a silly thought. Everyone was deserving of compassion. I opened my mouth, but Genichi beat me to it.

* * *

GENICHI: I believe you, Kaede. I don't think you did it.

TORANOSUKE: It has to be her. The evidence all points to it.

GENICHI: And why are you so sure the culprit took the weapon in the morning?

GENICHI: It's just as likely that the culprit retrieved it during the night, before they ever got there. In fact, I'd say that's what happened.

GENICHI: And if that's the case, then it could have been anyone, not just Kaede.

TORANOSUKE: ...

GENICHI: If you can't refute me, then there's still room for doubt. I want to continue the discussion.

TORANOSUKE: Good for you. I'd rather have a vote on the culprit.

GENICHI: You don't really have a choice. We need a unanimous decision, right? You can consider this as my refusal to vote for Kaede.

JUZOU: Yeah... Yeah! I'm not voting for her either!

TORANOSUKE: For the love of... Fine, screw this. Do what you want.

KAEDE: Genichi...thank you.

KAEDE: And, um, thank you as well Juzou. Even if you're a pervert.

JUZOU: Heh! No problem!

NICHIRA: Wow, you were really riding on Genichi's coattails there.

JUZOU: You shut your trap! I wasn't riding on any coattails!

GENICHI: Don't thank me yet. I hate to say it, but you're not in the clear just yet.

RILEY: But what do we do now? If it's not Kaede, how do we figure out who the real culprit is?

GENICHI: We take a look at the evidence we haven't examined yet.

GENICHI: I agree that the recipient of Xin's letter was most likely one of the girls, but there's something we haven't accounted for yet– that is, the **—[Missing Letters]—**. Where did they go?

GENICHI: Xin arranged to meet the culprit, so they are likely in possession of the letter he sent them. But that wasn't the only letter sent that night; Masanori saw one stuck under Xin's door. It must have been the one sent by the culprit.

LANA: So! We find the letter, we find the killer. I betcha it incriminates 'em.

ASAHARA: We searched Xin's pockets, but he didn't have anything like that on him...

KAEDE: Maybe the culprit took it from him after they killed him? Who was the first person to discover the body?

BEATRICE: You think it was ME? Where would I hide it, you moron? This dress doesn't have pockets!

SHINJI: It may not have been on him at all. There's no reason he'd have to carry it around.

TORANOSUKE: It's probably gone by now. If culprit has had it this whole time, they had all of the investigation to get rid of it.

TORANOSUKE: If they didn't hide it, it could have been destroyed. Maybe they burned it using the kitchen stove?

GENICHI: Nichira and I spent most of our time there. I can only speak for myself, but I can say with confidence that I would have noticed if it had been used.

NICHIRA: Same here. You'd smell the gas, and you'd smell the burning paper.

MIO: Right. Destroying it without a trace would be harder than it first appears. It's a closed circle, so options are limited.

MIO: Everyone was searching this place, and the culprit would have left some evidence even if they did destroy it. It's still here somewhere, I'm sure of it.

SHINJI: I want to believe you're right...but we searched everywhere, Mio.

MIO: I know! We must be missing something...

YUUTA: ...Well, it's strange...

NICHIRA: Thank you, Captain Obvious.

YUUTA: No, I mean... I was just thinking, isn't it weird we _didn't_ find it?

YUUTA: Xin received two letters that night. One from the culprit, but also one from Masanori as well.

YUUTA: Masanori's letter was still there when we searched his room, so the culprit's letter should have been in there too.

ASAHARA: S-So then the culprit stole it from his room?

YUUTA: That's what I'm thinking.

AYANO: That revelation is hardly helpful though. Xin was killed at 6:00 AM... even if the culprit had to wait until the ground was dry before they could leave, they had all morning to take the letter from Xin's room.

MIO: Hold on... but wasn't **—[Xin's Student ID]—** broken? His room would have been locked. There's no way to get in without it.

YUUTA: It was open when I went there during the investigation...

MIO: Oh! You're right. But then... how? Is there another way to unlock his door?

MONOKUMA: Ooh, that sounds like my cue.

MONOKUMA: Xin's room was indeed locked. I couldn't have you barred from such a crucial area, so I unlocked it manually when I was asked during the investigation.

JUZOU: Really? Then it was locked up until the investigation started! The culprit had to do it after we discovered Xin!

SHINJI: And the only way the culprit could have stolen it without drawing attention is if they did it before anyone else got there...

MASASNORI: No way... t-then, that means...

KAEDE: Masanori!? Do you know who it is?

MASANORI: I was one of the first to visit Xin's room, yeah? When I went in, there was someone already there.

MASANORI: It was you... **Ayano**.

AYANO: ...

GENICHI: What do you have to say for yourself? The conclusion matches up with what we know.

AYANO: I'm sure it's... a coincidence, that's all.

AYANO: If I'm not mistaken, everything you have so far is either conjecture or circumstantial evidence. But it is not enough to prove I was the one who did it.

GENICHI: You got me there. We're still missing the crucial piece of evidence.

MIO: Right, the letter!

RILEY: I don't get it… Where's it hidden, if we still can't find it after all this time?

SHINJI: Actually... I think I know of a place.

JUZOU: You do? So then you can prove it?

SHINJI: Yeah. I understand what happened now... more or less.

* * *

It all started sometime yesterday, when Xin wrote a letter to the culprit, asking them to meet 'by the fountain at midnight'. What he wanted, it's hard to say, but it must have been important enough that the culprit decided to meet him.

Fast forward to 12 AM. They met, talked about something, and then parted ways again. The culprit probably decided around this time to murder Xin: they likely wrote a letter to Xin asking him for a second meeting, and stuffed it under his door. Afterwards, they headed to the shed to retrieve the tarp and murder weapon. This is also why the shed was never disturbed after Kaede saw it in the morning - neither the tarp nor the weapon were returned to the shed after being used.

Meanwhile, Xin left the fountain and found his way to the animal enclosures at around 12:30 AM. He released the owl, which caused the night time incident. Asuka saw him, but he asked for his presence to be kept a secret.

Some time before 6 AM, the time they arranged to meet Xin in the letter, the culprit returned to the fountain, hiding under the tarp to shield themselves when the sprinklers go off automatically. Xin arrived soon after, leaving a single trail of footprints leading towards the fountain.

With the pieces in place... the culprit struck, using the tarp to block the blood spatter. Xin's student ID was destroyed in the act.

Following the murder, the weapon was discarded in the fountain, and the tarp was cleaned. Putting their plan to obscure the time of death into action, the culprit climbed up to the observation deck using the rock climbing wall, hiding from sight in the elevator until 6:30 AM.

Once enough time had passed, the ground dried, leaving the culprit free to walk away without leaving footprints. They took the tarp with them, dumping it inside the wishing well and returning to their room, where they joined everyone else for breakfast as usual.

There was just one piece of evidence left to conceal. Unfortunately for them, Xin's student ID was shattered, leaving them unable to enter his locked room, where the letter they wrote to him still lay. Forced to wait until the investigation has begun to gain access to his room, they rushed to get there first—and succeeded.

However, Masanori was not far behind. With no other option to hide it, there was only one place they could put it with the hopes of being able to destroy it later...

* * *

SHINJI: Could it be... you're carrying it with you?

AYANO: ...

RILEY: Ayano, can you show us what's in your pockets?

AYANO: ...

* * *

Ayano didn't make eye contact with anyone. Slowly, she drew open the left side of her blazer, where a pair of envelopes had been neatly placed into the inside pocket.

"The letters are here... the ones I exchanged with Xin."


	16. Zone 1: Punishment ft Mad Tea Party

**hirowriter - Ayano did kill Xin! One letter she already had (because Xin sent it to her), and the other one she retrieved from his room during the investigation.**

* * *

Ayano didn't have anything to say for herself. She looked around at each of us, silently accepting our judgement.

"So it was you..." Lana said, looking less than pleased with her. "Whaddaya have to say for yourself? Why'd ya do it?"

"It was Xin who came to me first. He told me that the real purpose of that drill machine wasn't to escape to the surface," Ayano explained. Her voice was hesitant at first, but she quickly returned to her usual articulateness. "It was... a gas chamber. Upon activation, it would kill everyone inside."

 _It would kill everyone?_

I didn't say anything, but I could hardly believe what I was hearing. I watched her, just in case she was joking, but she was dead serious.

"That is an extremely serious accusation," Yuuta said. He seemed just as sceptical —and disturbed— as I was. "But why did Xin tell only you?"

"I don't know. I didn't believe him. I thought he was trying to scare me so that I wouldn't go and he could take my place," she explained. Her gaze fell to the ground and the hand grasping her jacket sleeve tightened. "Or, failing that, he would resort to more drastic measures to take my place."

There was a short lapse as everyone processed this new information. Nichira was the first to reply. "You really thought Xin would be capable of something like that?"

"I may not look it, but... I lose my composure easily," Ayano said despondently. "Monokuma was encouraging me, and with only my own thoughts as feedback, I'm afraid that I panicked."

"Are you joking right now? Where's your backbone?" Toranosuke sneered at her. "A stuffed toy tells you to kill someone and you just do it?"

Eyes wide with alarm, Kaede rounded on our new teacher. "Monokuma!? Is that true?"

"Don't get me wrong! It was her idea," he cried. He held his arms up in a token gesture of defence, but he didn't seem awfully scandalised at Ayano's suggestion. "I didn't suggest anything she wasn't thinking already."

"It didn't have to come to this. You should have said something..." I muttered. I was beginning to feel sick. This... was the reason for all of this? Why didn't Monokuma stop her?

She gave me a pained look. "Yes... I am very aware of that now."

"There's one last thing I don't understand," Mio suddenly cut in. She had been silent so far, no doubt as horrified as the rest of us, but it seemed she had identified a loose end. "Asahara was punished for breaking the rules, but why were you able to get away with it?"

Ayano looked at her, puzzled. The question clearly hadn't occurred to her. "I... have no idea. I wasn't thinking straight, so it didn't even cross my mind that I was disobeying the rules."

Again, we looked to Monokuma for answers, who was happy to indulge us. "I made a special allowance. It wouldn't have been much of a mystery if you had all been alerted to Ayano's rule breaking, now would it?"

"H-Hold on, what do you mean by that?" Juzou replied nervously. "You didn't WANT it to be a mystery, did you? Did you know it was Ayano all along!?"

I hadn't wanted to entertain the thought, but that's certainly what it looked like. Monokuma didn't even attempt to defend himself— he tilted his head, falling into a calculating silence.

"Hnh, is that how it is... then I'll end the charade here," he said after a long moment, more to himself than any of us. Suddenly, he stood up in his chair. Flower-chan whimpered, cowering away from him in fear. "Sorry to say, but Xin was right all along. I was planning to kill you all; in fact, I told him that myself."

"You... What...?" Kaede stammered.

"But now it's turned out this way, it's _much_ more interesting," he announced, turning to Ayano. "As for you... It's time for your punishment."

She seemed to have been expecting it, but flinched anyway. "P...Punishment?"

"You killed Xin, after all," Monokuma replied, voice dripping with malice. "I warned you. The punishment for breaking the rules AND failing to get away with murder is... severe."

Oh no, I did _not_ like the way this was going. My heart started to pound in my chest as I leaned forward in my stand, as if that would somehow give me more authority. "H-Hey, Monokuma, just wait a second—"

Monokuma ignored me, letting slip a laugh of childlike glee. "Ahahaha! Justice waits for no one! It's punishment time!"

* * *

 **VERDICT REACHED**

Ultimate Mycologist Ayano Shiyami has been found guilty.

 **COMMENCING EXECUTION**

—[Code Red]—

* * *

 _Ayano is seated within the animal enclosures. A long table has been set for a party, shadowed under a series of huge red and white mushrooms._

 _All seems to be going well; animals gather to join Ayano while cute fairies appear, dancing around merrily while Ayano reluctantly takes a teacup handed to her by Monokuma._

 _Without warning, the atmosphere changes. The animals scatter as the mushrooms begin to vibrate, showering down sickly green spores onto the party below. It settles over everything, almost immediately killing the fairies and covering Ayano, absorbing into her face and arms._

 _Ayano grimaces, already starting to show symptoms of the lethal poison entering her system. Just when it seems like the air can't get any thicker with spores, a loud siren starts blaring, calling in a small fleet of airplanes._

 _The drone of the engines buzz through the air as they swoop in and carpet bomb the entire area with napalm, swallowing the enclosures, the spores, the mushrooms—and Ayano with them—in raging plumes of fire._

* * *

It was strange to watch such a bizarre execution right in front of my eyes.

I didn't register that it all happened here in Sector Earth. I thought it would come to an end, as if now the execution was over the flames had served their purpose and would simply disappear.

But they didn't. And I watched as all hell broke loose, and the lush green paradise below us exploded into a burning sea of red.


End file.
